Biographie Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela was one of the most significant world figures of the 20th and of the early 21sh centuries.

He was born on the 18th of July 1918 in Transkei South Africa. He was adopted by a tribal chief and live in a royal palace when he was nine years old. He was in a British style school. When he was nineteen years old he began to study at the prestigious university of Fort Hare and became a student representative. He started to study law when he moved to Johannesburg. He joined the ANC because he became interested in politics. And he considered that the peaceful methods take by the ANC is ineffective and he created in 1961 Umkhonto we Sizwe a mouvement which used armed struggle to try to defeat the gouvernement. 

He was arrested for sabotage and sentenced to five years in prison which the became ‘’life’’. But the sentence to last longer he staying in prison finally during 27 years, 6 months and 6 days in bad conditions, no real bed, just a carpet in the floor with a little table and that’s all the was empty. And this conditions really have damaged his health He went out to the prison at the age of 71 years old on 11 february 1990. He working with de Klerk he began to plan a new South Africa and in 1993 these two men were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to dismantle the country’s apartheid system.

He became the first black president if South Africa in 1994 and he began immediately to unite blacks and whites under the banner of the Rainbow Nation. He was president of South Africa during five years.

After his retirement in 1999 he became famous on the international stage, raising money for the charities, acting as peace-market and meeting with world leaders and celebrities like Madonna, Michael Jackson, Will Smith and other celebrities. At the age of 85 he returned to private life to spending time with his wife Graça Machel, his family in his childhood hommeland. He made his final appearance in public at the final of the football World Cup in 2010. And he died three years later at the age of 95 years at his home of Houghton in Johannesburg, on 5th of December 2013. And his funeral was attended by world leaders from over 90 countries. His death was impacte his people, and many people crying after this. The UN has declared a Mandela Day, because his life will be celebrated every year on his birthday 18th July