The passing of an icon
The image of Nelson Mandela emerging from prison after spending nearly three decades in apartheid jails is a defining moment in the history of South Africa and an enduring symbol of the struggle for equality the world over.
Mandela has died aged 95, and people around the globe are saying goodbye to the icon of peace and reconciliation, who led the struggle against apartheid and became South Africa’s first black president.
July 18, 1918 - Born Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela near Qunu, in Transkei (now Eastern Cape), the youngest son of a counsellor to the chief of his Thembu clan.
1944 - Mandela founds the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League with Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu. In the same year he marries his first wife Evelyn, with whom he had a daughter and two sons. They divorced in 1957.
1952 - Mandela and others are arrested and charged under the Suppression of Communism Act and he is given a suspended prison sentence. The same year, he is elected deputy national president of the ANC.
1958 - Mandela marries his second wife, Winnie Madikizela. They separated in April 1992 and were divorced about four years later.
1962 - Mandela leaves South Africa secretly and goes for military training in Morocco and Ethiopia. On his return he is captured and sentenced to five years for incitement and illegally leaving the country.
1963 - While serving his jail sentence, Mandela is charged with conspiracy and sabotage.
June 12, 1964 - Mandela and seven others are sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island, off Cape Town.
Supporters carry Nelson Mandela's daughter Zinzi Mandela to the stage in Soweto, where she reads a statement from her father, who rejected an offer of conditional freedom from the government in 1985. She told a crowd of 5,000 people: "My father says: I cannot and will not give any undertaking at a time when I and you, the people, are not free."
A young man holds up a placard of Nelson Mandela - still in prison at the time - at a mass meeting at Zwide township near Port Elizabeth. The event was arranged by church leaders to call for a withdrawal of troops from the black township.
February 2, 1990 - F.W. de Klerk, South Africa's last white president, lifts the ban on the ANC and other liberation movements. Mandela walks free from jail nine days later.
Mandela meets fellow ANC leader Oliver Tambo for the first time in 28 years, during a visit to Sweden shortly after his release from jail.
Mandela and his then-wife Winnie give the clenched-fist salute as they sing the hymn of the ANC during their appearance before the World of Churches Ecumenical Centre in Geneva.
1991 - Mandela is elected president of the ANC.
October 1993 - Mandela is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with F.W. de Klerk for “their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa”.
Mandela holds up his medal and certificate after he received the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with de Klerk.
Mandela shakes hands with the leader of the predominantly Zulu Inkatha Freedom party (IFP), Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Clashes between members of the ANC and IFP verged on war in the Zulu stronghold of KwaZulu Natal ahead of the country's first democratic elections, which Buthelezi agreed to contest at the last minute.
An Inkatha Freedom Party supporter sits outside her burnt-out house after it was torched by ANC supporters during a gunfight in Kwa Mashu township, as clashes raged between the two groups.
A member of the controversial anti-riot police force, the Internal Stability Unit, points a machine gun at ANC supporters suspected of retaliating against attacks from Inkatha Freedom Party supporters in the township of Kwa Mashu.
Members of the ANC carry their wounded comrade during clashes in 1994 with fighters from the Inkatha Freedom Party in townships near Johannesburg.
A damaged poster of Mandela is carried past a South African policeman in the Lindelani Township, dominated by the Inkatha Freedom Party. Police were called in after supporters of the opposition parties harassed each other whilst putting up posters for the 1994 elections.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela arrive for an open-air service for South Africa's Christian community, which took place days before Mandela was inaugurated as president after his party won the country's first democratic elections.
May 10, 1994 - Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa's first black president. "The time for the healing of the wounds has come... The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come. The time to build is upon us," he said.
Nelson Mandela takes the oath of office as President of South Africa at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
Newly inaugurated as President of South Africa, Mandela holds up his hand with then-Second Deputy President F.W. de Klerk as they address the huge crowd of people in front of the Union Buildings.
Mandela smiles for photographers as he is given a hug by U.S. pop star Whitney Houston during his first year in office.
July 1995 - South Africa's new government passes a law to allow the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, set up to probe crimes committed by both sides in the anti-apartheid struggle.
Former apartheid-era President P.W. Botha and President Nelson Mandela exchange views after their meeting to discuss the upcoming Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the trials of former army generals. Botha refused to appear when summoned by the commission.
Mandela gestures during his state of the nation address at the opening of parliament in Cape Town. He concentrated on crime and the economy, the country's two major problems after nearly three years of democracy.
Winnie Madikizela Mandela leaves the stage during a campaign to boost literacy in Soweto township outside Johannesburg. Mandela, who divorced Winnie the previous year, was accompanied by Graca Machel (centre), who would later become his third wife.
Nelson Mandela chats with Microsoft chairman Bill Gates after they met at Mandela's residence.
Mandela talks with President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, as he was leaving the country after a three-day state visit.
Winnie Madikizel-Mandela talks to her daughter Zinzi Hlogwane during a break in the testimony of one of the witnesses at a special public hearing of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Johannesburg. Witnesses accused Winnie Mandela of the murder of Stompie Seipei, a 14 year-old activist who died in 1989.
December 1997 - Mandela hands leadership of the ANC to Deputy President Thabo Mbeki in the first stage of a phased transfer of power.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela peer through the bars of the cell in which Mandela was imprisoned during his incarceration by the apartheid-era government. Mandela showed the cell to Clinton during a tour of Robben Island, the penal colony where he was held for 18 years.
Mandela adjusts his sunglasses as he and his companion Grace Machel, who would later become his wife, set sail aboard the QE II cruise ship in Durban harbour before setting sail for Cape Town.
July 18, 1998 - Mandela marks his 80th birthday by marrying his partner Graca Machel, the widow of Mozambican President Samora Machel.
Mandela and his new wife Graca Machel blow out a candle on his birthday cake during a gala dinner outside Johannesburg.
Mandela and his new wife Graca Machel hold hands as they are greeted by friends and family after the first traditional phase of a two-part wedding in Pretoria and Johannesburg. After singing a traditional wedding song with family in Pretoria, their union was blessed by clergymen including Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Archbishop Desmond Tutu hands over the commission’s report to President Mandela at the state theatre building in Pretoria.
Then-president Nelson Mandela and Deputy President Thabo Mbeki dance during an ANC rally at the FNB stadium in Johannesburg not long before South Africa's second democratic elections were to be held on June 2, 1999.
Mandela offers his seat to President-elect Thabo Mbeki following his last appearance in parliament as President.
June 16, 1999 – Mandela retires and hands power to the second post-apartheid era South African president, Thabo Mbeki.
Mandela raises the hand of his successor, Mbeki, who took the oath of office at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
Mandela and his wife Graca Machel look down at the crowd outside the Union Buildings in Pretoria after Mbeki took over the office of president.
Visitors peer through an open doorway at Robben Island Prison, where Mandela spent 18 years of his 27-year incarceration. The former penal colony, situated about 8 miles off Cape Town, was to form the centrepiece of the city's millennium celebrations, and Mandela decided to celebrate the New Year there with about 500 guests.
Nelson Mandela poses for photographers with singers Beyonce Knowles and Annie Lennox during a visit to Robben Island Prison near Cape Town. Knowles and Lennox were due to perform the next day with a host of other stars at the "46664" AIDS benefit concert, named after the prison number allocated to Mandela during his incarceration on the island.
Mandela sits beneath the window of his former prison cell on Robben Island.
Mandela smiles as he formally announces his retirement from public life at his foundation’s offices in Johannesburg. He told his countrymen: "Don't call me. I'll call you".
January 6, 2005 - Mandela announces that his only surviving son Makgatho Mandela died from AIDS at the age of 54.
Mandela listens to his wife Graca at the burial of his oldest and last-surviving son Makgatho, who succumbed to HIV/AIDS.
Mandela laughs with journalists and performers participating in the second AIDS-awareness "46664" concert near the small, Southern Cape province town of George.
July 18, 2007 - Mandela celebrates his 89th birthday by launching an international group of elder statesmen to tackle world problems including climate change, HIV/AIDS and poverty.
Mandela shakes hands with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter during a ceremony marking his 89th birthday in Johannesburg. Mandela unveiled an international group of elder statesmen - including Carter, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and former Irish President Mary Robinson – who would help tackle major world problems.
Mandela smiles as he announces an upcoming "46664" concert in Johannesburg to raise awareness of issues surrounding HIV/AIDS.
June 26, 2008 - U.S. lawmakers erase references to Mandela as a "terrorist" from national databases.
Mandela speaks during a concert held in his honour in Hyde Park, London, to raise funds for his HIV/AIDS "46664" campaign, named after his prison number.
Queen guitarist Brian May performs at the “46664” concert in honour of Nelson Mandela.
Mandela chats with Britain's prime minister at the time, Gordon Brown, (unseen) during a meeting at the former South African president's hotel in central London.
Mandela is greeted by current South African president Jacob Zuma at a lunch meeting with ex-political prisoners incarcerated at Robben Island.
June 11, 2010 - Mandela's 13-year-old great-granddaughter is killed in a car crash after leaving a concert on the eve of the World Cup. Mandela cancels his attendance of the opening game.
Mandela attends the memorial service for his 13-year-old great-granddaughter Zenani, who was killed in a car crash. Hundreds of mourners attended her funeral.
11 July, 2010 - Mandela made his last appearance at a mass event in July 2010 before the final of the soccer World Cup. He received a thunderous ovation from the 90,000 at the Soccer City stadium in Soweto.
Mandela and his wife Graca Machel wave to the crowd at the Soccer City stadium during the closing ceremony for the 2010 World Cup.
Mandela celebrates his 94th birthday at his house in Qunu, Eastern Cape. People across South Africa celebrated the occasion with giant cakes, mass renditions of "Happy Birthday" and 67 minutes of good deeds - one for each year of the anti-apartheid leader's struggle against white-minority rule.
A shop owner shows off South Africa's new banknotes, which feature an image of former president Mandela on the front.
December 5, 2013 - Nelson Mandela dies.
Mourners pay homage outside Mandela's home in the Houghton neighbourhood of Johannesburg.
Wenceslous Nicholas, age four, lights a candle in front of a statue of the late South African leader in central London.
A girl waves a South African flag while visiting Mandela's house in Soweto, on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
India Harris, age eight, and her sister Kitty, five, stand in front of a Nelson Mandela mural shortly after laying bouquets of flowers for the former South African president.
A man sells pins decorated with the image of Nelson Mandela outside the Mandela house in Houghton.
Women and girls from the Children of Mary Sodality wait before a service for Mandela at the Regina Mundi Church in Soweto.
A girl holds a candle during a service for the former South African president at the Soweto church.
Women sing during a service for Mandela in the Regina Mundi Church.
A woman holds a bible and a programme sheet during a service for Mandela.
Former Archbishop of Cape Town and veteran anti-apartheid campaigner Desmond Tutu holds a mass at Cape Town's Anglican St George's Cathedral.
Reverend Lucas Sontaga prays at a service held for Mandela in Mvezo, where the former South African President was born.
A man prays near the marquee of the Apollo Theatre in New York as he honours Mandela's life.
A man is reflected in a window outside the Apollo Theatre, where the marquee displays a memoriam to the late anti-apartheid icon.
A woman kneels by flowers and tributes left for Mandela at South Africa's High Commission in London.
A picture and a letter are placed in front of the South African Embassy in Beijing.
People release paper lanterns after lighting them outside a restaurant named Madiba, Mandela's clan name.
Dijon Anderson of Bowie, Maryland, photographs his 10-year-old son Keaton in front of a statue of Mandela at the South African embassy in Washington.
An image of Mandela is projected onto the facade of Paris town hall.
A woman holds a poster outside the house of the former South African President in Houghton.
Palestinians attend a candlelight vigil in tribute to Mandela in Gaza City.
Schoolchildren hold candles and photographs of the former South African president during a prayer ceremony in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad.
A woman folds her hands in prayer next to candles outside the house where Mandela died.
Story
Nelson Mandela, from apartheid fighter to president and unifier
Nelson Mandela guided South Africa from the shackles of apartheid to multi-racial democracy, as an icon of peace and reconciliation who came to embody the struggle for justice around the world.
Imprisoned for nearly three decades for his fight against white minority rule, Mandela emerged determined to use his prestige and charisma to bring down apartheid while avoiding a civil war.
"The time for the healing of the wounds has come. The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come," Mandela said in his acceptance speech on becoming South Africa's first black president in 1994.
"We have, at last, achieved our political emancipation."
In 1993, Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, an honour he shared with F.W. de Klerk, the white Afrikaner leader who freed him from prison three years earlier and negotiated the end of apartheid.
Mandela went on to play a prominent role on the world stage as an advocate of human dignity in the face of challenges ranging from political repression to AIDS.
He formally left public life in June 2004 before his 86th birthday, telling his adoring countrymen: "Don't call me. I'll call you". But he remained one of the world's most revered public figures, combining celebrity sparkle with an unwavering message of freedom, respect and human rights.
Whether defending himself at his own treason trial in 1963 or addressing world leaders years later as a greying elder statesman, he radiated an image of moral rectitude expressed in measured tones, often leavened by a mischievous humour.
"He is at the epicentre of our time, ours in South Africa, and yours, wherever you are," Nadine Gordimer, the South African writer and Nobel Laureate for Literature, once remarked.
Mandela's years behind bars made him the world's most celebrated political prisoner and a leader of mythic stature for millions of black South Africans and other oppressed people far beyond his country's borders.
Charged with capital offences in the 1963 Rivonia Trial, his statement from the dock was his political testimony.
"During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination.
"I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities," he told the court.
"It is an ideal I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."
DESTINED TO LEAD
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, destined to lead as the son of the chief councillor to the paramount chief of the Thembu people in Transkei.
He chose to devote his life to the fight against white domination. He studied at Fort Hare University, an elite black college, but left in 1940 short of completing his studies and became involved with the African National Congress (ANC), founding its Youth League in 1944 with Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu.
Mandela worked as a law clerk then became a lawyer who ran one of the few practices that served blacks.
In 1952 he and others were charged for violating the Suppression of Communism Act but their nine-month sentence was suspended for two years.
Mandela was among the first to advocate armed resistance to apartheid, going underground in 1961 to form the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto weSizwe, or 'Spear of the Nation' in Zulu.
He left South Africa and travelled the continent and Europe, studying guerrilla warfare and building support for the ANC.
After his return in 1962, Mandela was arrested and sentenced to five years for incitement and illegally leaving the country. While serving that sentence, he was charged with sabotage and plotting to overthrow the government along with other anti-apartheid leaders in the Rivonia Trial.
Branded a terrorist by his enemies, Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964, isolated from millions of his countrymen as they suffered oppression, violence and forced resettlement under the apartheid regime of racial segregation.
He was incarcerated on Robben Island, a penal colony off Cape Town, where he would spend the next 18 years before being moved to mainland prisons.
He was behind bars when an uprising broke out in the huge township of Soweto in 1976 and when others erupted in violence in the 1980s. But when the regime realised it was time to negotiate, it was Mandela to whom it turned.
In his later years in prison, he met President P.W. Botha and his successor de Klerk.
When he was released on February 11, 1990, walking away from the Victor Verster prison hand-in-hand with his wife Winnie, the event was watched live by television viewers across the world.
"As I finally walked through those gates ... I felt even at the age of 71 that my life was beginning anew. My 10,000 days of imprisonment were at last over," Mandela wrote of that day.
ELECTIONS AND RECONCILATION
In the next four years, thousands of people died in political violence. Most were blacks killed in fighting between ANC supporters and Zulus loyal to Mangosuthu Buthelezi's Inkatha Freedom Party, although right-wing whites also staged violent actions to upset the moves towards democracy.
Mandela prevented a racial explosion after the murder of popular Communist Party leader Chris Hani by a white assassin in 1993, appealing for calm in a national television address. That same year, he and de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Talks between the ANC and the government began in 1991, leading to South Africa's first all-race elections on April 27, 1994.
The run-up to the vote was marred by fighting, including gun battles in Johannesburg townships and virtual war in the Zulu stronghold of KwaZulu Natal.
But Mandela campaigned across the country, enthralling adoring crowds of blacks and wooing whites with assurances that there was a place for them in the new South Africa.
The election result was never in doubt and his inauguration in Pretoria on May 10, 1994, was a celebration of a peoples' freedom.
Mandela made reconciliation the theme of his presidency. He took tea with his former jailers and won over many whites when he donned the jersey of South Africa's national rugby team - once a symbol of white supremacy - at the final of the World Cup in 1995 at Johannesburg's Ellis Park stadium.
The hallmark of Mandela's mission was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which investigated apartheid crimes on both sides and tried to heal the wounds. It also provided a model for other countries torn by civil strife.
In 1999, Mandela, often criticised for having a woolly grasp of economics, handed over to younger leaders - a voluntary departure from power cited as an example to long-ruling African leaders.
A restful retirement was not on the cards as Mandela shifted his energies to fighting South Africa's AIDS crisis.
He spoke against the stigma surrounding the infection, while successor Thabo Mbeki was accused of failing to comprehend the extent of the crisis.
The fight became personal in early 2005 when Mandela lost his only surviving son to the disease.
But the stress of his long struggle contributed to the break-up of his marriage to equally fierce anti-apartheid campaigner Winnie.
The country shared the pain of their divorce in 1996 before watching his courtship of Graca Machel, widow of Mozambican President Samora Machel, whom he married on his 80th birthday in 1998.
Friends adored "Madiba", the clan name by which he is known. People lauded his humanity, kindness, attention and dignity.
Unable to shake the habits of prison, Mandela rose daily between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. to exercise and read. He drank little and was a fervent anti-smoker.
An amateur boxer in his younger days, Mandela often said the discipline and tactics drawn from training helped him to endure prison and the political battles after his release.
RAINBOW NATION
But prison and old age took their toll on his health.
Mandela was treated in the 1980s for tuberculosis and later required an operation to repair damage to his eyes as well as treatment for prostate cancer in 2001. His spirit, however, remained strong.
"If cancer wins I will still be the better winner," he told reporters in September of that year. "When I go to the next world, the first thing I will do is look for an ANC office to renew my membership."
Most South Africans are proud of their post-apartheid multi-racial 'Rainbow Nation'.
But Mandela's legacy of tolerance and reconciliation has been threatened in recent years by squabbling between factions in the ANC and social tensions in a country that, despite its political liberation, still suffers great inequalities.
Mandela's last major appearance on the global stage came in 2010 when he donned a fur cap in the South African winter and rode on a golf cart, waving to an exuberant crowd of 90,000 at the soccer World Cup final, one of the biggest events in the country's post-apartheid history.
"I leave it to the public to decide how they should remember me," he said on South African television before his retirement.
"But I should like to be remembered as an ordinary South African who together with others has made his humble contribution."
