97 Fun Facts About Nelson Mandela

How many years did Mandela spend in prison?

27 years: held from his arrest in August 1962 until February 1990, Mandela spent 18 of them on Robben Island and was refused leave to bury his mother and his eldest son.

What does Mandela's Xhosa forename, Rolihlahla, colloquially mean?

'Troublemaker' is the colloquial sense of Rolihlahla, literally 'pulling the branch of a tree'; his father chose the name, and Mandela wrote that friends later blamed it for the storms he caused.

By what clan name is Mandela affectionately known in South Africa?

Madiba is Mandela's clan name, taken from an 18th-century chief who was his ancestor; among the Xhosa, using a person's clan name is a mark of respect, which made it the nation's fond way to address him.

In which village was Mandela born on 18 July 1918?

Mvezo, a village on the Mbashe River, is where his father Gadla was chief until he was deposed; his mother then moved to the village where Mandela spent his boyhood.

To which royal family did Mandela belong?

Mandela belonged to the Thembu royal family through its Ixhiba or 'Left-Hand House', a branch of hereditary royal councillors that was ineligible for the throne.

What was Mandela's job from about the age of five?

Herd-boy was his job from about five, looking after sheep and calves, when he learned the Xhosa's deep attachment to cattle; his father had four wives, and his mother, the third, kept her own homestead.

After his father's death, Mandela was entrusted to the guardianship of which regent?

Chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo, the acting regent, became Mandela's guardian after his father's death and raised him at the Great Place at Mqhekezweni alongside his own children.

Which two sports did Mandela pursue in his spare time at Healdtown college?

Long-distance running and boxing filled his spare time at Healdtown, where he became a prefect; of boxing he later wrote that he enjoyed 'the science of it' more than the violence.

At which university did Mandela begin a BA in 1939, only to leave without finishing it there?

Mandela enrolled at the University of Fort Hare in 1939 but was sent home in 1940 after a dispute over the Students' Representative Council, and finished his BA by correspondence instead.

Why did Mandela and his cousin flee to Johannesburg?

The regent had arranged marriages for them, so in 1941 Mandela and his cousin Justice ran away; in Johannesburg he worked as a mine night watchman until the headman learned he was a runaway and dismissed him.

Which ANC activist and realtor got Mandela his first job as an articled clerk at a Johannesburg law firm?

Walter Sisulu, who ran an estate agency, took Mandela to Lazar Sidelsky, a liberal lawyer with an interest in African education, whose firm Witkin, Sidelsky and Eidelman agreed to article him.

Which organisation did Mandela help found in 1944, with Anton Lembede as first president?

The ANC Youth League was formed in 1944 at Johannesburg's Bantu Men's Social Centre to push the ANC toward mass action; Mandela sat on its first executive, and its Programme of Action became party policy in 1949.

Through which university did Mandela earn his law degree in 1989, while still a prisoner?

University of South Africa awarded Mandela his LLB in 1989, in his last months in prison; he had left Wits without the degree and never completed the University of London course he began after his 1962 arrest.

What title did Mandela hold in the 1952 Defiance Campaign, signing up people to break apartheid laws?

Volunteer-in-Chief was his post: he toured the country enlisting defiers and was arrested himself, and ANC membership swelled from about 20,000 to 100,000 during the campaign.

Mandela's 1953 speech 'No Easy Walk to Freedom' took its title from a quote by whom?

The title quoted Jawaharlal Nehru's line that there is 'no easy walk to freedom anywhere'; Mandela's 1953 presidential address to the Transvaal ANC was read out for him because he was banned.

With whom did Mandela open South Africa's only firm of African lawyers in the early 1950s?

Oliver Tambo joined him at Chancellor House in Johannesburg, where Mandela and Tambo took on a stream of police-brutality cases; the authorities then used the Group Areas Act to order the firm out of the city centre.

The 1955 Freedom Charter was adopted at the Congress of the People, held in which place near Johannesburg?

Kliptown, outside Johannesburg, hosted the Congress of the People on 25-26 June 1955; Mandela, banned from gatherings, watched in secret before police broke the meeting up.

Whom did Mandela marry in Bizana in June 1958?

Winnie Madikizela, a social worker, married Mandela in Bizana on 14 June 1958; she later endured imprisonment and banishment, and the couple separated in 1992.

How did the Treason Trial, which began in 1956, end for Mandela in March 1961?

All the accused, Mandela included, were found not guilty on 29 March 1961; the judges ruled the prosecution had not proved the ANC planned violent revolution or was communist.

Where did police shoot dead 69 protesters, by the official count, in March 1960?

Sharpeville: police fired on a crowd protesting the pass laws on 21 March 1960; Mandela burned his own pass in solidarity, and within weeks the government banned the ANC.

What nickname did the press give Mandela while he travelled incognito in 1961?

The press dubbed him 'the Black Pimpernel' for evading police while travelling in disguise, a nod to Baroness Orczy's 1905 novel The Scarlet Pimpernel.

What does Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed group Mandela co-founded in 1961, mean?

'Spear of the Nation' is the meaning of Umkhonto we Sizwe, or MK, which announced itself with a series of bombings on 16 December 1961, aimed at installations rather than people.

Where in Rivonia did Mandela hide with MK comrades in 1961?

Mandela lived at Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia from October 1961, posing as a farmhand; the police raid there on 11 July 1963 seized the documents that led to the Rivonia Trial.

Which emperor did Mandela meet in 1962 while touring Africa in secret?

Mandela met Emperor Haile Selassie in Addis Ababa in February 1962 while addressing a pan-African conference; he later began guerrilla training in Ethiopia before being recalled home.

Which foreign spy agency reportedly tipped off South African police before Mandela's 1962 arrest?

The CIA feared Mandela's communist links, said Donald Rickard, a former American diplomat who later claimed it had told the police where to find him; he was arrested near Howick on 5 August 1962.

What did Mandela wear to disrupt his 1962 hearing in Pretoria?

Mandela entered the Pretoria court in a traditional kaross, a leopard-skin cloak, to stress that he was a black African in a white man's court; he was sentenced to five years.

What is Mandela's Rivonia Trial speech called?

'I Am Prepared to Die' comes from its closing line; Mandela spoke from the dock rather than the witness box, where he would have faced cross-examination.

What penalty did Mandela and his co-accused expect at the Rivonia Trial before the judge imposed life?

The death sentence was the maximum penalty for sabotage, and Mandela wrote that he told his lawyers he would not appeal against it; Judge Quartus de Wet instead gave him and seven co-accused life imprisonment on 12 June 1964.

What did Mandela first sleep on in his Robben Island cell?

A mat on the floor was his bed; he wrote that he could cross the cell in three paces, and that lying down his feet touched one wall while his head grazed the other.

As a Class D prisoner, how often was Mandela initially allowed a visit and a letter?

Classified in the lowest category, Class D, Mandela was allowed a visit and a letter only once every six months, and every letter was heavily censored by the authorities.

Which liberal Progressive Party MP championed Mandela's cause after visiting him on Robben Island?

Helen Suzman, for years the Progressive Party's only MP, visited Robben Island in 1967 and heard Mandela's complaints about a brutal warder, who was transferred soon afterwards.

How was Mandela punished when warders found his secret prison memoir?

He lost his study privileges for four years after buried pages of the manuscript were found; a copy already smuggled out by a freed comrade later became the basis of Long Walk to Freedom.

In a Shakespeare volume smuggled round Robben Island, Mandela signed his name beside lines from which play?

Julius Caesar: on 16 December 1977 Mandela signed beside 'Cowards die many times before their deaths'; the book's owner had covered it in Hindu greeting cards and told the guards it was a holy text.

To which Cape Town prison was Mandela transferred from Robben Island in 1982?

Mandela was moved to Pollsmoor Prison in Tokai, Cape Town, in 1982 with several Rivonia comrades; there he turned the empty rooftop into a vegetable garden, one of his happiest diversions.

What did the government demand of Mandela in return for his freedom in February 1985?

That he renounce violence was the state president's price; Mandela refused in a statement read to a Soweto rally, asking what freedom he was being offered while the ANC stayed banned.

Which Minister of Justice opened secret contacts with Mandela after visiting him in hospital in 1985?

Kobie Coetsee dropped in unannounced while Mandela was recovering from prostate surgery in 1985; their meetings led to formal talks with a government team that began in 1988.

Which songwriter from The Specials wrote the 1984 protest hit 'Free Nelson Mandela'?

Jerry Dammers had never heard of Mandela until he went to an anti-apartheid concert in London in 1983; the song he then wrote for The Special AKA reached number nine in the UK.

On the day of his release in February 1990, Mandela addressed the crowd from which Cape Town balcony?

City Hall's balcony overlooked the Grand Parade, packed with well-wishers; the government had wanted to free him in Johannesburg, but Mandela insisted on walking out of the gates of Victor Verster Prison.

Which state president legalised the ANC and announced Mandela's release?

F. W. de Klerk, state president since 1989, had already freed Mandela's Rivonia comrades that October; he unbanned the ANC on 2 February 1990, and the two men shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize.

Which hymn, now part of South Africa's national anthem, did the crowd sing as Mandela was led from court in 1962?

Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika rose from the gallery after Mandela, who had turned his plea in mitigation into a political speech, was given five years for incitement and leaving the country illegally.

The ANC's 63% in 1994 fell just short of letting it change what alone?

The constitution could have been rewritten by the ANC alone with two-thirds of the vote; Mandela wrote that he was relieved to miss it, so that no one could call the result an ANC constitution rather than a South African one.

Mandela's 1994 inaugural address pledged to build what kind of nation, 'at peace with itself and the world'?

Rainbow nation was the phrase he used for the new South Africa; he wrote that the generals who saluted him that day would, not many years before, have arrested him.

To which Springbok captain did Mandela present the 1995 Rugby World Cup, wearing a Springbok shirt?

Francois Pienaar received the Webb Ellis Cup from Mandela, who wore the captain's own number 6; his predecessor as president said the gesture 'won the hearts of millions of white rugby fans'.

Whom did Mandela appoint to chair the Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

Archbishop Desmond Tutu chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 1996; it could grant amnesty to perpetrators who fully disclosed their crimes and delivered its report in October 1998.

What did Mandela rename Westbrooke manor, the Cape Town residence he settled into as president?

Mandela renamed Westbrooke 'Genadendal', meaning 'Valley of Mercy', after the historic Moravian mission village of that name; he let his predecessor stay on at Groote Schuur next door.

Which American journalist's interviews helped shape Mandela's 1994 autobiography Long Walk to Freedom?

Time journalist Richard Stengel spent many hours interviewing Mandela and helped him turn his 1970s prison manuscript into Long Walk to Freedom, published in 1994.

Whom did Mandela marry on his 80th birthday in July 1998?

Graça Machel, widow of Mozambican president Samora Machel, married Mandela on 18 July 1998; only that February had he publicly admitted to being 'in love with a remarkable lady'.

Mandela helped broker a deal for the two Libyan Lockerbie suspects to be tried under Scots law in which country?

The Netherlands hosted the Scottish court at Camp Zeist, a disused air base; the trial opened in 2000 and convicted only Megrahi, whom Mandela later visited in Barlinnie prison.

Whom did Mandela hope would succeed him as ANC president in 1997, though the party chose Thabo Mbeki?

Cyril Ramaphosa, the ANC's chief negotiator, was Mandela's choice because he found Mbeki too inflexible and intolerant of criticism; passed over, Ramaphosa went into business and became president himself in 2018.

Mandela stayed on which country's terrorism watch list until 2008?

United States officials had designated the ANC a terrorist organisation in the 1980s; Condoleezza Rice called Mandela's place on the list 'embarrassing' in 2008, and a law signed that July took him off it.

Who told South Africans on television that Mandela had died on 5 December 2013?

Jacob Zuma, then president, announced that Mandela had died at home aged 95, saying 'Our nation has lost its greatest son'; ten days of national mourning followed.

Who gave Mandela the English forename 'Nelson'?

His teacher Miss Mdingane gave him the name Nelson on his first day at the local Methodist primary school, which he started at about age seven, as was customary for African pupils.

Who was Mandela's first wife, a trainee nurse he married in 1944?

Evelyn Mase had four children with Mandela; the marriage broke down in the 1950s as she became a devout Jehovah's Witness and he gave more and more of his life to politics.

At which Johannesburg venue was Mandela's memorial service held on 10 December 2013?

FNB Stadium in Soweto, also called Soccer City, hosted the memorial in heavy rain; it was where Mandela had addressed a huge welcome-home rally two days after his release in 1990.

Mandela was the first living person to be made an honorary citizen of which country?

Canada made Mandela an honorary citizen in 2001, the first living person so honoured; a lone MP, Rob Anders, kept the vote from being unanimous by calling him a communist and a terrorist.

Which country's peace award did Mandela initially refuse in 1992, accepting it only in 1999?

Turkey's Atatürk Peace Award was declined in 1992 by Mandela, who cited human rights violations there, among them the treatment of the Kurds; he changed his mind and accepted the prize seven years later.

What working title did Mandela give his unfinished sequel to Long Walk to Freedom?

The Presidential Years was Mandela's title for the memoir of his time in office, which he never finished; Mandla Langa completed it from the draft, archives and interviews, and it appeared in 2017 as Dare Not Linger.

What does the 64 in Mandela's prison number, 46664, stand for?

The year 1964: he reached Robben Island as the 466th prisoner of that year, hence 466/64; the number later gave its name to a series of benefit concerts.

The 'Mandela effect' is named after a false memory that Mandela did what?

Paranormal researcher Fiona Broome coined the term after finding that she and many others shared a false memory that Mandela had died in prison in the 1980s; he in fact walked free in 1990 and lived until 2013.

Who played Mandela in the 2013 film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom?

Idris Elba played Mandela; news of Mandela's death broke during the film's royal premiere in London on 5 December 2013, with two of his daughters in the audience.

Who directed Invictus, the 2009 film about Mandela and the 1995 Rugby World Cup?

Clint Eastwood directed Invictus, adapting John Carlin's book Playing the Enemy; the title is William Ernest Henley's poem, which runs through the film as Mandela's inspiration.

Which actor portrayed Mandela in Invictus?

Morgan Freeman had tried for years to film Mandela's autobiography; when that stalled, he bought the film rights to a book about the 1995 Rugby World Cup and starred in the result.

What scandal overshadowed the speeches at Mandela's December 2013 memorial service?

A fake sign-language interpreter, Thamsanqa Jantjie, stood beside world leaders making meaningless gestures; he later blamed a schizophrenic episode, and deaf groups condemned the mockery of South African Sign Language.

The UN's 2015 'Mandela Rules' set minimum standards for the treatment of whom?

Prisoners are the subject of the Mandela Rules, the UN's Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, first agreed in 1955 and renamed on their 2015 revision to honour a man who spent decades behind bars.

At which event did Mandela make his final public appearance?

The 2010 World Cup closing ceremony, on 11 July 2010, was Mandela's last public appearance: he was driven across the pitch in a golf cart to roars from the crowd, having campaigned to bring the tournament to South Africa.

In 2005, Mandela publicly announced that which disease had killed his son Makgatho?

Mandela announced in January 2005 that his son Makgatho had died of AIDS, saying openness was the only way to fight the stigma; he had admitted neglecting the epidemic as president.

Robben Island takes its name from the Dutch word for which animal?

Seals, 'robben' in Dutch, gave the island its name; the Dutch already used it as a place of banishment in the 1600s, and it later held a leper colony before the apartheid prison.

Which group of world leaders did Mandela unveil in a speech on his 89th birthday?

Mandela launched The Elders in Johannesburg on 18 July 2007, his 89th birthday: a group of veteran leaders working independently for peace and human rights, an idea first floated by Richard Branson and Peter Gabriel.

Whose handshake with Barack Obama at Mandela's memorial drew criticism in Washington?

Obama shook hands with Cuba's Raúl Castro on the podium, the first such gesture between sitting US and Cuban leaders since 2000; John McCain likened it to Chamberlain shaking hands with Hitler.

Which language did Mandela study in prison hoping to win over his warders?

Mandela learned Afrikaans in prison, believing that speaking the warders' language would help win them over; he also encouraged inmates to teach one another in the so-called University of Robben Island.

Work in which part of Robben Island permanently damaged Mandela's eyesight?

Years of labour in the lime quarry, where the glare off the white rock went unshielded because sunglasses were refused, permanently damaged Mandela's eyesight; inmates were sent there from January 1965.

Where was Mandela's state funeral held on 15 December 2013?

Mandela was buried at his family home in Qunu, the Eastern Cape village where he grew up, after a state funeral in a giant marquee attended by about 4,500 people; broadcasting stopped before the burial at the family's request.

What did Mandela's portrait replace on South African banknotes in 2012?

Big Five animals had been the notes' main motif; when the Mandela series arrived in 2012 his portrait took the front, and the animals moved to the back.

What phrase did the 85-year-old Mandela use in 2004 when withdrawing from public life?

Announcing in June 2004 that he was 'retiring from retirement', the 85-year-old Mandela joked 'Don't call me, I will call you'; his foundation then declined most invitations on his behalf.

Which daughter read out Mandela's 1985 rejection of a conditional release offer?

Zindzi Mandela, then 24, read her father's reply at a Soweto rally on 10 February 1985 because neither of her parents was free to deliver it; she later served as South Africa's ambassador to Denmark.

Who delivered the first Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture in 2003?

Bill Clinton gave the first Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture on 19 July 2003, likening Mandela in retirement to a Dylan Thomas character; Mandela had stood by him during his impeachment.

Which leader did Mandela deride as America's foreign minister for backing the 2003 Iraq war?

Tony Blair was dismissed by Mandela as an American foreign minister for backing the invasion; he also accused George W. Bush of wanting only Iraqi oil and of undermining the UN.

Which domestic habit did Mandela reportedly keep up even as president?

Making his own bed was a habit Mandela kept even as president; in a Shanghai hotel, his aide Jessie Duarte recalled, he had the cleaners brought to him to explain that he meant no insult.

Which neighbouring leader's rule did Mandela call a 'tragic failure of leadership' in 2008?

Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe drew the remark at a London dinner for Mandela's 90th birthday, two days before a run-off election that the opposition had quit over violence against its supporters.

Which state president surprised Mandela with an invitation to tea in July 1989?

P. W. Botha received Mandela for tea at Tuynhuys in Cape Town on 5 July 1989, a cordial meeting that came less than six weeks before Botha resigned the presidency in August 1989.

For which groups did Mandela's government introduce free healthcare in 1994?

From 1994 children under six and pregnant women received free healthcare at public facilities; the scheme was widened in 1996 to everyone using primary-level public clinics.

Under the alias David Motsamayi, what did the fugitive Mandela pose as while travelling South Africa in 1961?

A chauffeur's cap and overalls were his cover: as he wrote, the pose let him travel 'under the pretext of driving my master's car' while a warrant was out for his arrest.

Who was the chief prosecutor at the Rivonia Trial?

Percy Yutar, deputy attorney-general of the Transvaal, led the prosecution; in 1995 President Mandela invited him to lunch as a gesture of reconciliation.

Which words did Mandela add to his Rivonia speech's last line to placate his lawyers?

At his lawyers' urging Mandela inserted 'if needs be' into the speech's closing sentence, softening a declaration they feared would goad the judge into the harshest sentence.

Who was the last surviving Rivonia Trial defendant, dying in July 2020?

Andrew Mlangeni, among the first MK recruits sent to China for military training, died on 21 July 2020, three months after Denis Goldberg, leaving no surviving Rivonia defendants.

Which two Johannesburg districts does the Nelson Mandela Bridge link?

Braamfontein and Newtown are joined by the cable-stayed bridge, opened on 20 July 2003 across 42 railway lines as part of a drive to rejuvenate Johannesburg's inner city.

Whose batik shirts are said to have inspired the loose patterned shirts that became Mandela's trademark?

Suharto's batik was the model, said Yusuf Surtee, the outfitter who dressed Mandela for decades; designer Desré Buirski also gave him such a shirt in 1994, and more than one maker has claimed the credit.

A nine-metre bronze Mandela was unveiled in Pretoria on which public holiday in 2013?

The statue was unveiled at the Union Buildings on 16 December 2013, the Day of Reconciliation and the day after Mandela's funeral; it took the spot of a J. B. M. Hertzog statue, moved elsewhere in the grounds.

Which South African musician recorded 'Bring Him Back Home (Nelson Mandela)'?

Hugh Masekela, the exiled trumpeter, wrote 'Bring Him Back Home' after a 1985 birthday note from Mandela was smuggled out of prison to him; released in 1987, it became an anti-apartheid anthem.

Which Hollywood actor hosted the London concert for Mandela's 90th birthday in 2008?

Will Smith hosted the 90th-birthday concert in London's Hyde Park on 27 June 2008 with his wife Jada Pinkett Smith; Mandela himself came on stage to speak, to great applause.

At 16 Mandela received the name Dalibunga after undergoing which traditional Xhosa rite?

Initiation into manhood meant circumcision alongside his cousin Justice and other boys; Dalibunga, his new name, means 'Founder of the Bunga', the Transkei's traditional ruling body.

On what obsolete audio format were nearly 250 hours of the Rivonia Trial recorded?

Dictabelts, thin plastic belts made for Dictaphone machines, held the trial audio, 591 of them in all; the British Library digitised seven of them in 2001, among them Mandela's statement from the dock.

Mandela's 2005 'Arctic' benefit concert was staged in which Norwegian city?

Tromsø, well north of the Arctic Circle, staged the Arctic benefit concert on 11 June 2005; Mandela, then 86, travelled there and addressed the crowd himself.

What did sculptors secretly hide in the right ear of Mandela's Union Buildings statue?

A tiny rabbit was the sculptors' stand-in for a signature and a nod to how fast they had to work: 'haas' means both rabbit and quickly in Afrikaans. It was removed after a furore.

What did Tunisia's President Bourguiba give Mandela on his secret 1962 tour?

£5,000 for weapons, plus an offer to train MK's soldiers, came from Habib Bourguiba when they met in Tunis; Mandela recalled the response as 'utterly positive and immediate'.

Why did Rivonia co-accused Denis Goldberg serve his sentence apart from the other men?

He was white, and apartheid segregated even its prisons: Goldberg was held in Pretoria while the others went to Robben Island, and he spent more than 20 years apart from his comrades.

Whose philosophy of non-violent resistance shaped the 1952 Defiance Campaign that Mandela helped lead?

Mahatma Gandhi's satyagraha was the model, but Mandela backed non-violence as a tactic rather than a creed, and less than a decade later he helped found an armed wing.