18 July: Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela was born on July 18th 1918, 100 years ago. In 2009, the United Nations proclaimed this date to be Nelson Mandela International Day. The holiday asks people to spend 67 minutes doing something good for others, which represents the 67 years he spent working toward change.

1. Nelson wasn't the name he was given by his parents at birth. They called him Rolihlahla, which means pulling the branch of a tree, or troublemaker. The name Nelson was given to him by his teacher on his first day at school. In the 1920s, African children were given English names so English people could pronounce them.
2. The Mandela family were descended from royalty. His great-grandfather was ruler of the Thembu people; his father His father was a local chief with four wives in different villages.
3. Nelson was the first member of his family to attend school, and went on to study law and became one of South Africa’s first black lawyers. He and a school friend, Oliver Tambo, set up South Africa’s first black-run law firm. They provided affordable legal counsel to blacks who had broken Apartheid-era laws.
4. As a member of the outlawed ANC, he was wanted for treason and conspiracy against the government, but evaded arrest for a long time. He was a master of disguise and often evaded the law by disguising himself as a farmer, chauffeur, or chef. He became known as "the Black Pimpernel" because he was so good at it. He was eventually captured, dressed as a chauffeur, while driving with fellow activist Cecil Williams.
5. At his trial, Mandela saved his own life by making a speech in which he declared he was prepared to die. Ironically, this saved him from the death penalty and he got life in prison instead. He served 27 years and his prison number was 46664 - because he was the 466th prisoner of 1964. While in prison, he drew inspiration from a William Ernest Henley's poem Invictus, and would read it to fellow prisoners. The poem was about never giving up, and is the one which includes the lines "I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul." He was a leader even then, and organised hunger strikes and campaigns to improve living conditions for prisoners. He did this by becoming highly skilled at passing notes - leaving them in discarded matchboxes, under dirty dishes or taped on the inside of Toilet tanks for the recipients to find. He also started writing his memoirs, which he hid, wrapped in plastic in containers in the prison vegetable garden. When the prison authorities began building a wall through the garden, they found these papers. Several times, he was offered the chance to get out of jail by renouncing armed struggle. He refused every time.
6. He was married three times. His first wife was Evelyn Mase. They had four children and divorced in 1958. That same year he married Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. They had two children and divorced in 1996. At the age of 80, he married again - his third wife was Graca Machel, who was the widow of Mozambique President Samora Machel. Since Nelson Mandela was President of South Africa, that gave Graca the distinction of being the first lady of two countries. The story could have been quite different, however. Mandela's family arranged a marriage for him when he was a young man, and also for his cousin, Justice. Neither boy wanted to marry partners who had been picked for them, so they ran away from home to avoid it.
7. He's a movie star, too. He had a cameo role in the Spike Lee film, Malcolm X. He plays a teacher reciting one of the civil rights activist’s speeches. However, the footage cuts back to Malcolm X himself uttering the words “by any means necessary,” because Mandela refused to say those words.
8. He had one regret on his retirement from politics, and that was that he'd not done enough to address the HIV/AIDS crisis, so he started an AIDS charity called 46664 (his prison number) in 2002, with the mission of promoting HIV/AIDS prevention and awareness. His son Makgatho Mandela died at 54 from an AIDS related illness.
9. One of his favourite foods was tripe, although he also liked Indian food. He was interested in archaeology and boxing, although his interest in the sport was primarily in the movement and strategy of the sport rather than the violence. He made his bed every morning, even when he was president, and saw lack of punctuality as a character flaw.
10. Mandela received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for peacefully destroying the Apartheid regime. That was by no means the only honour he received. In fact, he could have won more awards than anyone else, ever. Honours bestowed upon him include honorary degrees from more than 50 universities. He was the first living person to receive honorary citizenship of Canada and the last to receive the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union. He has a Woodpecker (Australopicus nelsonmandelai), an orchid (Paravanda Nelson Mandela) and a nuclear particle (the Mandela particle) named after him. He was also made an honorary member of the Harlem Globetrotters and Manchester United FC. Nevertheless, he was still regarded as a terrorist in several quarters. It wasn't until 2008 that he was removed from the U.S. terror watch list at the age of 89.

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