-
Rolihlahla Mandela is born in Mvezo, a tiny village in the Transkei, a former British protectorate in the south. His father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa, was a chief of the Thembu people, a subdivision of the Xhosa nation. The new child’s given name translates, colloquially, as troublemaker. He receives his more familiar English name, Nelson, from a teacher at age 7.
-
Mr. Mandela is admitted to the University of Fort Hare, a black institution. Two years later he will be expelled for leading a student protest.
-
Mr. Mandela and other activists form the African National Congress Youth League after becoming disenchanted with the cautious approach of the older members of the A.N.C. The league’s formation marks the shift of the congress to a mass movement. But its manifesto, so charged with pan-African nationalism, offends some non-black sympathizers.
-
Mr. Mandela marries Evelyn Ntoko Mase. The couple will have four children, but Mr. Mandela’s political activities will put a strain on the relationship. The couple will divorce in 1958.
-
Mandela and Oliver Tambo open South Africa’s first black law practice.
-
Mr. Mandela is arrested at his home and charged with treason, along with 155 others who called for a nonracial state in South Africa.
-
In the midst of Mr. Mandela’s trial on treason charges, he marries Nomzamo Winifred Madikizela, 16 years his junior. The tumultuous union will produce two daughters and a national drama of forced separation, devotion, remorse and acrimony.
-
Mr. Mandela and his co-defendants are acquitted of treason. Fearing he will be arrested again, Mr. Mandela goes underground.
-
Mandela and other A.N.C. leaders form a military wing called Umkhonto we Sizwe, or Spear of the Nation. Mr. Mandela becomes the first commander in chief of the guerrilla army. He will train to fight, work to obtain weapons for the group, and come to be known as the Black Pimpernel, but he will never see combat.
-
Mandela is arrested after returning to South Africa from a trip abroad. At the time of his arrest, he had been living underground for 17 months. He is convicted of leaving the country illegally and incitement to strike, and is sentenced to five years in prison.
-
Mandela and seven others are convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Mr. Mandela is sent to Robben Island prison, seven miles off the coast of Cape Town. He will spend the next 18 years there.
-
Mandela is transferred to the Victor Verster Prison Farm, about 50 miles from Cape Town. The South African government says he will not have to return to Pollsmoor Prison.
-
Mr. de Klerk lifts the ban on the A.N.C. and several other political organizations, and lifts many of the restrictions put in place when the state of emergency was declared four years earlier. He promises that Mr. Mandela will be released shortly.
-
Mandela, now 71, is freed without conditions, ending 27 and a half years of imprisonment. For Mr. de Klerk, enlisting Mr. Mandela in negotiations over a new constitution seems to be the surest way to achieve his stated goal: to end political domination by the white minority without replacing it with domination by the black majority.
-
Mandela announces that he and his wife, Winnie, have agreed to separate. While saying that his love for Mrs. Mandela “remains undiminished,” Mr. Mandela makes clear that he considers the separation permanent.
-
Mandela is sworn in as president of South Africa, making a speech of shared patriotism that summons South Africans’ communal exhilaration in their land and their relief at being freed from the world’s disapproval.
-
On his 80th birthday, Mr. Mandela marries Graça Machel, the 52-year-old widow of the former president of Mozambique, Samora Machel.
-
The government announces that Mr. Mandela has died, leaving the nation without its moral center at a time of growing dissatisfaction with the country’s leaders. “Our nation has lost its greatest son,” President Jacob Zuma said in a televised address late Thursday night, adding that Mr. Mandela had died at 8:50 p.m. local time.
