????July 18, 1918 ????Rolihlahla Dalibhunga Mandela is born in the tiny village of Mvezo, in the hills of South Africa’s Eastern Cape. He was given the name Nelson by a schoolteacher but is also sometimes called Madiba, his traditional clan name. ????1939 ????Mandela attends the University of Fort Hare, one of the few higher education facilities for black South Africans at the time. ????1944 ????Mandela joins the African National Congress, a political party dedicated to opposing apartheid, South Africa’s legal system of racial segregation. That same year, Mandela marries Evelyn Ntoko; the couple will have four children during their 13-year marriage. ????1952 ????Mandela leads the newly launched ANC Campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws, a program of nonviolent mass resistance. ????1958 ????After his divorce from Evelyn Ntoko, Mandela marries Nomzamo Winifred “Winnie” Madikizela, a young social worker. They have two daughters. ????March 21, 1960 ????The South African Government outlaws the ANC after the Sharpeville Massacre and Mandela will go underground to form a new military wing of the organization. ????June 1961 ????Mandela begins organizing the armed struggle against apartheid with the group Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation). ????1964 ????The government convicts him of treason and sentences him to life in prison on Robben Island. ????Feb. 11, 1990 ????Mandela is released from prison after 27 years. ????1991 ????Mandela is elected president of the ANC. ????Dec. 10, 1993 ????Mandela and South Africa’s last apartheid president, F.W. de Klerk, share the Nobel Peace Prize. ????April 29, 1994 ????Mandela is elected president in the first open election in South African history. ????1998 ????Mandela marries Graca Machel, widow of late Mozambican President Samora Machel. The following year, his presidential term ends. ????Dec. 5, 2013 ????Mandela dies at his home in Johannesburg at age 95. | 