Nelson Mandela was born in 1918 on July 18. He joined the African Nation Congress (ANC) in 1943. Madiba married his first wife Evelyn Mase shortly afterwards in 1944, the same year he and other members of the ANC founded the ANC Youth League. Mr Mandela and his wife divorced in 1958 and he married Nomzamo Winnie Madikizela in the same year. In 1961 Mr Mandela and other ANC leaders formed Umkhonto weSizwe (MK), the armed wing of the ANC. In 1964 Mr Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment for sabotage and released in 1990. Mr Mandela became the first democratically elected President of South Africa in 1994. Mr Mandela divorced his second wife in 1996 and married Graça Machel on his 80th birthday in 1998. Mr Mandela stepped down after one term in office in 1999, before retiring in 2004.
Abridged biographyRolihlahla Mandela was born in Mvezo, in the Transkei, on July 18, 1918.
After receiving a primary education at a local mission school, where he was given the name Nelson, he was sent to the Clarkebury Boarding Institute for his Junior Certificate and then to Healdtown, where he matriculated.
He then enrolled at the University College of Fort Hare for a Bachelor of Arts Degree. He was elected onto the Students' Representative Council but he was suspended from college for joining in a protest boycott, along with Oliver Tambo.
He and his cousin Justice ran away to Johannesburg to avoid arranged marriages and for a short period he worked as a mine policeman. Mr Mandela was introduced to Walter Sisulu in 1941 and it was Sisulu who arranged for him to do his articles at Lazar Sidelsky's law firm.
Completing his BA through the University of South Africa (Unisa) in 1942, he commenced study for his LLB shortly afterwards (though he left the University of the Witwatersrand without graduating in 1948). He entered politics in earnest while studying, joining the African National Congress (ANC) in 1943.
Mr Mandela married Evelyn Mase in 1944. They had four children: Thembikile (1946), Makaziwe (1947), who died at nine months, Makgatho (1951) and Makaziwe (1954), before getting divorced in 1958.
In 1944 a small group of young ANC members banded together under the leadership of Anton Lembede to found the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL).
After the introduction of apartheid after the National Party won the 1948 all-white elections, the Programme of Action, inspired by the Youth League - which advocated the weapons of boycott, strike, civil disobedience and non-co-operation - was accepted as official ANC policy.
When the ANC launched its Campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws in 1952, Mr Mandela was elected National Volunteer-in-Chief.
For his part in the Defiance Campaign, Mr Mandela was convicted of contravening the Suppression of Communism Act and given a suspended prison sentence.
Later in 1952 Mr Mandela wrote the attorneys admission examination and was admitted to the profession. In December, in partnership with Tambo, Mr Mandela opened South Africa's first black law firm in central Johannesburg.
Mr Mandela and Mase separated in 1955, and were formally divorced in 1958. Shortly afterwards he married Nomzamo Winnie Madikizela.
For much of the latter half of the 1950s, Mr Mandela was one of the 156 accused in the Treason Trial.
After the Sharpeville Massacre on March 21, 1960, the ANC was outlawed, and Mr Mandela, still on trial, was detained, along with hundreds of others.
The Treason Trial collapsed in 1961. With the ANC now illegal, the party went underground and Nelson Mandela emerged as the leading figure in this new phase of struggle.
Mr Mandela, together with other leaders of the ANC, constituted Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the ANC.
In 1962 Mandela left the country, travelling abroad for several months. During this trip Mr Mandela met up with the first group of 21 MK recruits on their way to Addis Ababa for guerrilla training.
After his return to South Africa Mr Mandela was arrested, on August 5, and charged with leaving the country illegaly.
He was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment. He was transferred to Robben Island in May 1963 only to be brought back to Pretoria in July when he and 10 others were charged with sabotage after the MK headquarters were discovered.
At the Rivonia Trial Mr Mandela and nearly all of his co-accused were found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment on June 12, 1964. Mr Mandela spent almost 27 years in prison, before being released on February 11, 1990. In 1991 he was elected President of the ANC.
In 1993 Mr Mandela accepted the Nobel Peace Prize (along with FW de Klerk) on behalf of all South Africans who suffered and sacrificed so much to bring peace to our land.
On April 27, 1994 Nelson Mandela voted for the first time in his life and on May 10 was inaugurated as the President of a democratic South Africa.
In 1996 Mr Mandela divorced Madikizela and 1998, on his 80th birthday, he married Graça Machel.
Mr Mandela stepped down in 1999 after one term as President, before stepping down from public life in 2004.