Richard Branson . Born on July 18, 1950, in Surrey, England, Richard Branson struggled in school and dropped out at age 16—a decision that ultimately lead to the creation of Virgin Records. His entrepreneurial projects started in the music industry and expanded into other sectors making Branson a billionaire. His Virgin Group holds more than 200 companies, including the recent Virgin Galactic, a space-tourism company. Branson is also known for his adventurous spirit and sporting achievements, including crossing oceans in a hot air balloon.
Early Life
Richard Charles Nicholas Branson was born on July 18, 1950, in Surrey, England. His father, Edward James Branson, worked as a barrister. His mother, Eve Branson, was employed as a flight attendant. Richard, who struggled with dyslexia, had a hard time with educational institutions. He nearly failed out of the all-boys Scaitcliffe School, which he attended until the age of 13. He then transferred to Stowe School, a boarding school in Stowe, Buckinghamshire, England.
Still struggling, Branson dropped out at the age of 16 to start a youth-culture magazine called Student. The publication, run by students, for students, sold $8,000 worth of advertising in its first edition, which was launched in 1966. The first run of 50,000 copies was disseminated for free, after Branson covered the costs with advertising.
By 1969, Branson was living in a London commune, surrounded by the British music and drug scene. It was during this time that Branson had the idea to begin a mail-order record company called Virgin to help fund his magazine efforts. The company performed modestly, but made Branson enough that he was able to expand his business venture, adding a record shop in Oxford Street, London. With the success of the record shop, the high school drop-out was able to build a recording studio in 1972 in Oxfordshire, England.
Virgin Records
His first artist on the Virgin Records label, Mike Oldfield, recorded his single "Tubular Bells" in 1973 with the help of Branson's team. The song was an instant smash, staying on the UK charts for 247 weeks. Using the momentum of Oldfield's success, Branson then signed other aspiring musical groups to label, including the Sex Pistols. Artists such as the Culture Club, the Rolling Stones, and Genesis would follow, helping to make Virgin Music one of the top six record companies in the world.
Ralph Lauren was born Ralph Lifshitz in the Bronx, New York City, on October 14, 1939. His parents were Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants from Belarus. At the age of 16, Ralph and his brother Jerry changed their last name to Lauren, having been teased consistently at school. Another brother, Lenny, retained the family name.
Lauren attended Baruch College in Manhattan, where he studied business for two years. After a brief stint in the Army, Lauren took a sales job at Brooks Brothers.
Fashion Career
In 1967, Lauren began designing men’s neckties, branding them under the name “Polo” and selling them at large department stores, including Bloomingdale’s. Lauren then expanded his designs to a full menswear line.
In 1970, Lauren was awarded the Coty Award for his menswear designs. Following this recognition, he released a line of women's suits tailored in a classic men's style. In 1972, Lauren released a short-sleeve cotton shirt in 24 colors. This design, emblazoned with the Polo logo, became the brand’s signature look. Lauren subsequently broadened his brand to include a luxury clothing line called Ralph Lauren Purple, a home-furnishing collection called Ralph Lauren Home, and a collection of fragrances. Polo currently produces clothing for men, women and children. Lauren has also designed Olympic uniforms for Team USA.
Polo expanded rapidly in the 1980s and 1990s, opening boutiques across the United States and abroad. In 1984, Lauren opened the flagship store in New York’s Rhinelander Mansion. The company went public on June 11, 1997, traded under the symbol RL.
The success of Polo has earned Lauren a personal fortune estimated at $6.5 billion. This figure, if accurate, would make Lauren the 122nd richest person in the world.
Personal Life
Lauren married receptionist Ricky Anne Low-Beer in New York City in 1964. He successfully concealed the fact that Ricky was only half Jewish from his parents before the wedding.
The Laurens are the parents of three children: Andrew, David and Dylan. David Lauren is the only one of the three to have made his career at Polo. In 2011 he married Lauren Bush, the niece of former President George W. Bush and the granddaughter of former President George H.W. Bush. Andrew Lauren is a film producer, while Dylan Lauren is the owner of the New York City candy store Dylan’s Candy Bar.
Lauren underwent surgery in the mid-1980s to remove a benign tumor from his brain.
Using his considerable fortune, Lauren has amassed a famous collection of rare automobiles. He has between 50 and 100 cars, including a 1930 Mercedes-Benz Count Trossi SSK known as "The Black Prince." In 2005, Lauren allowed his collection to be displayed at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. In 2011, a selection from his car collection was exhibited in Paris
Walt Disney at the age of 1, in 1902. (Credit: Apic/Getty Images)
Born in Chicago on December 5, 1901, Disney, the fourth of five children, moved with his family to a farm in Marceline, Missouri, when he was four. It was in Marceline—a small-town community Disney remembered as an adult as having been idylli—that he first received encouragement for his burgeoning interest in drawing, from both an aunt as well as a neighbor who was a retired doctor. However, Disney’s father had difficulty making a living in Marceline and sold the farm in 1910; the following year, the family relocated to Kansas City. There, Disney’s father purchased a newspaper route and for the next six years Walt helped with the deliveries, working before and after school and on weekends. In 1917, his father sold the paper route and moved the family back to Chicago, where he was employed at a jelly and fruit juice company. Walt dropped out of high school at 16 (he had been an inattentive student but drew constantly) and, with the Unites States fighting World War I, joined the Red Cross Ambulance Corps by forging his birth certificate in order to meet the Corps’ minimum age requirement of 17. He was sent to France in late 1918, shortly after the signing of the armistice that ended the fighting. Disney spent his time driving Red Cross officials and doing other tasks before being discharged in 1919.
2. He was the voice of Mickey Mouse.
Credit: Apic/Getty Images
Following his Red Cross service, Disney moved to Kansas City, hoping to become a newspaper cartoonist. Instead, he found work creating advertisements for magazines and movie theaters then became interested in animation. In 1922, he opened a film studio called Laugh-O-Gram but it struggled financially and shut down in 1923. That same year, he moved to Hollywood and formed Disney Brothers Studio with his older sibling Roy. After producing various short, animated cartoons, the studio started making a series in 1927 about a character Walt had developed called Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. However, the next year, in what was a major blow, Walt lost the rights to his popular creation and many of his employees were poached in a corporate dispute. In response, he developed a new character originally dubbed Mortimer Mouse before it was decided Mickey would be a better moniker. Mickey Mouse made his official debut in a 1928 short film titled “Steamboat Willie,” one of the first cartoons ever to use synchronized sound effects. The rodent quickly became a star, and soon there were Mickey Mouse Clubs for children as well as merchandise and a comic strip. When Mickey spoke for the first time, in 1929’s “The Karnival Kid” (his words were “Hot dog, hot dog”), Walt was unhappy with how the character sounded and went on to lend his own voice to the mouse until 1947’s “Mickey and the Beanstalk,” when he said he was too busy to continue doing so.
3. Disney produced propaganda films for the U.S. government during World War II.
Sheet music for the Disney Film "Der Fuehrer's Face." (Credit: Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images)
During the war, Disney employees created educational films for various federal agencies, including a 1942 animated short, “The New Spirit,” commissioned by the Treasury Department to encourage people to pay their income taxes as a way to support the war effort. The film, which starred Donald Duck, was shown in thousands of movie theaters and even earned an Academy Award nomination. The Disney studio also made training films for the American military, and created, free-of-charge, more than a thousand insignia for military units; the designs centered around established Disney characters as well as new characters. Although Walt initially was reluctant to risk tarnishing his image as a non-political entertainer by producing blatantly propagandistic works, his team eventually turned out animated shorts such as 1943’s “Der Fuerher’s Face,” which made fun of the Nazis and again starred Donald Duck. Additionally, after reading the 1942 best-seller “Victory Through Air Power” by Major Alexander de Seversky, Walt, driven by his own patriotism, decided to adapt it as a 1943 live action-animated feature of the same name in order to win support for the book’s theories—considered controversial by some U.S. military officials—about strategic long-range bombing. Both President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill saw the film, which reportedly made an impression on them.
4. He was a train buff.
Disney drives a miniature railroad filled with passengers at his California home. (Credit: Gene Lester/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
The famous filmmaker had a long fascination with trains. His father and an uncle had spent time working on railroads, and as a teen in Kansas City Walt did a brief stint selling newspapers and snacks on trains. It was on a 1928 train trip back to Los Angeles from New York (after learning he’d lost the rights to his cartoon character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit) that Walt began developing the idea for the character eventually known to the world as Mickey Mouse (contrary to legend, Walt didn’t have a pet mouse on which he based Mickey). Later, Walt constructed elaborate model train sets as a way to unwind from the stress of his job. In the late 1940s, he built himself a one-eighth scale steam locomotive, and after moving into a new home in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles in 1950 he laid half a mile of tracks around the property for his railroad. He would dress up in a train engineer’s clothing and give visitors rides on his Carolwood Pacific Railroad, named for the street he lived on. His passion for trains is reflected at Disneyland, which has been home to its own railroad since opening in 1955.
5. The initial plans for Disneyland were small-scale.
Flowers form the design of Mickey Mouse's face at Disneyland, 1955. (Credit: Loomis Dean/The LIFE Pictures Collection/Getty Images)
Walt originally intended to build a small amusement park near his Burbank studio; however, his plans soon grew more ambitious and in 1953 he hired a research firm to find the optimal southern California location for a large-scale theme park. After studying factors such as population growth, weather patterns and transportation options, the firm recommended the site that would become Disneyland’s home: a 160-acre parcel, consisting mostly of orange trees, in Anaheim. Construction began in July 1954 and Disneyland opened a year later, on July 17. Opening day didn’t go smoothly, though: People produced counterfeit tickets, leading to an over-capacity crowd of attendees; rides broke; parts of the park were unfinished and a gas leak forced Fantasyland to be closed. Disneyland’s debut was showcased in a live TV broadcast—co-hosted by then-actor Ronald Reagan and seen by approximately 70 million Americans—yet the program was riddled with technical difficulties. Nevertheless, Disneyland was an immediate success, and after just one month the park had hosted more than half a million visitors. (Initially, it cost a dollar for adults and 50 cents for children to gain entry to the park, plus an extra 10 cents to 25 cents for every individual attraction.) Walt, who had been heavily involved in Disneyland’s development, enjoyed spending time at the park and even had an apartment there.
6. He won more Academy Awards than anyone else.
Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Disney holds the record for most individual Oscar wins (22) and nominations (59). In 1932, at the fifth Academy Awards ceremony, he earned his inaugural award, in the best short subject (cartoon) category, for “Flowers and Trees,” which used the new three-strip Technicolor process. Disney went on to win the same category at the next seven Oscar ceremonies. He scored one best picture nomination, for 1964’s “Mary Poppins,” but lost to “My Fair Lady.” (“Mary Poppins” did, however, rack up wins in five other Oscar categories, including best leading actress, given to Julie Andrews.) Disney also received four honorary Oscars, including one (handed out in 1932) for creating Mickey Mouse, another (in 1939) for “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (child actress Shirley Temple presented Disney with the award, which consisted of a regular-size statuette along with seven miniature versions, as a nod to the dwarfs); and a third (in 1942) for “Fantasia” and its contribution to sound design.
7. Disney wasn’t cryogenically frozen.
Credit: Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Pictures Collection/Getty Images
In November 1966, doctors discovered that Disney, a longtime smoker, had lung cancer. He died at a Burbank hospital the following month, on December 15, at age 65. Not long after his death, stories began circulating in the tabloid press that the filmmaker had been cryogenically preserved—that is, he’d been frozen with the hope that science might one day make it possible for him to be brought back to life. Despite the persistent rumors regarding Disney and cryonics, he was, in fact, cremated and his ashes were interred in a mausoleum at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. The first person to be frozen cryogenically was an American university professor in January 1967. Since that time, more than a hundred others have been cryopreserved, including baseball great Ted Williams, who died in 2002.
One of America's foremost industrialists, Henry Ford revolutionized assembly-line modes of production for the automobile.
Synopsis
Born on July 30, 1863, near
Dearborn, Michigan, Henry Ford created the Ford Model T car in 1908 and went on to develop the assembly line mode of production, which revolutionized the industry. As a result, Ford sold millions of cars and became a world-famous company head. The company lost its market dominance but had a lasting impact on other technological development and U.S. infrastructure.
Early Life
Famed automobile manufacturer Henry Ford was born on July 30, 1863, on his family's farm in Wayne County, near Dearborn, Michigan. When Ford was 13 years old, his father gifted him a pocket watch, which the young boy promptly took apart and reassembled. Friends and neighbors were impressed, and requested that he fix their timepieces too.
Unsatistfied with farm work, Ford left home the following year, at the age of 16, to take an apprenticeship as a machinist in Detroit. In the years that followed, he would learn to skillfully operate and service steam engines, and would also study bookkeeping.
Early Career
In 1888, Ford married Clara Ala Bryant and briefly returned to farming to support his wife and son, Edsel. But three years later, he was hired as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company. In 1893, his natural talents earned him a promotion to chief engineer.
All the while, Ford developed his plans for a horseless carriage, and in 1896, he constructed his first model, the Ford Quadricycle. Within the same year, he attended a meeting with Edison executives and found himself presenting his automobile plans to Thomas Edison. The lighting genius encouraged Ford to build a second, better model
Ford Motor Company
After a few trials building cars and companies, in 1903, Henry Ford established the Ford Motor Company. Ford introduced the Model T in October of 1908, and for several years, the company posted 100 percent gains.
However, more than for his profits, Ford became renowned for his revolutionary vision: the manufacture of an inexpensive automobile made by skilled workers who earn steady wages.
In 1914, he sponsored the development of the moving assembly line technique of mass production. Simultaneously, he introduced the $5-per-day wage ($110 in 2011) as a method of keeping the best workers loyal to his company. Simple to drive and cheap to repair, half of all cars in America in 1918 were Model T's.
Philosophy, Philanthropy and Anti-Semitism
From a social perspective, Henry Ford's was marked by seemingly contradictory viewpoints. In business, Ford offered profit sharing to select employees who stayed with the company for six months and, most important, who conducted their lives in a respectable manner.
The company's "Social Department" looked into an employee’s drinking, gambling and otherwise uncouth activities to determine eligibility for participation. Ford was also an ardent pacifist and opposed World War I, even funding a peace ship to Europe. Later, in 1936, Ford and his family established the Ford Foundation to provide ongoing grants for research, education and development. But despite these philanthropic leanings, Ford was also a committed anti-Semite, going as far as to support a weekly newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, which furthered such views.
Henry Ford died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 7, 1947, at the age of 83, near his Dearborn estate, Fair Lane. Ford, considered one of America's leading businessmen, is credited today for helping to build America's economy during the nation's vulnerable early years. His legacy will live on for decades to come.
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was one of the most powerful and infamous dictators of the 20th century. After World War I, he rose to power in the National Socialist German Workers Party, taking control of the German government in 1933. His establishment of concentration camps to inter Jews and other groups he believed to be a threat to Aryan supremacy resulted in the death of more than 6 million people in the Holocaust. His attack on Poland in 1939 started World War II, and by 1941 Germany occupied much of Europe and North Africa. The tide of the war turned following an invasion of Russian and the U.S. entry into battle, and Hitler killed himself shortly before Germany’s defeat.
PlayTo avoid being arrested for evading military service in Austria-Hungary, Adolf Hitler left Vienna for Munich in May 1913 but was forced to return–then he failed the physical. He volunteered for the Bavarian army the following year and served during all of World War I on the Western Front. His experiences in the fighting affected his thinking about war thereafter.
After World War I, Hitler came to control the National Socialist German Workers Party, which he hoped to lead to power in Germany. When a coup attempt in 1923 failed, he turned, after release from jail, to the buildup of the party to seize power by means that were at least outwardly legal. He hoped to carry out a program calling for the restructuring of Germany on a racist basis so that it could win a series of wars to expand the German people’s living space until they dominated and exclusively inhabited the globe.
He believed that Germany should fight wars for vast tracts of land to enable its people to settle on them, raising large families that would replace casualties and provide soldiers for the next war of expansion. The first would be a small and easy war against Czechoslovakia, to be followed by the really difficult one against France and Britain. A third war would follow against the Soviet Union, which he assumed would be simple and quick and would provide raw materials, especially oil, for the fourth war against the United States. That war would be simple once Germany had the long-range planes and superbattleships to fight a power thought inherently weak but far distant and possessing a large navy.
Once Hitler had come to power in 1933, German military preparations were made for these wars. The emphasis in the short term was on weapons for the war against the western powers, and for the long term, on the weapons for war against the United States.
In 1938 Hitler drew back from war over Czechoslovakia at the last minute but came to look upon agreeing to a peaceful settlement at Munich as his worst mistake. When he turned to the war against France and Britain, he could not persuade Poland to subordinate itself to Germany to ensure a quiet situation in the east; hence, he decided to destroy that country before heading west. He was determined to have war and initiated it on September 1, 1939. To facilitate the quick conquest of Poland and break any blockade, he aligned Germany with the Soviet Union, assuming that concessions made to that country would be easily reclaimed when Germany turned east.
Hitler had originally hoped to attack in the west in the late fall of 1939, but bad weather–which would have hindered full use of the air force–and differences among the military led to postponement until the spring of 1940. During that interval, Hitler made two major decisions. Urged on by Admiral Erich Raeder, he decided to seize Norway to facilitate the navy’s access to the North Atlantic and did so in April 1940. Urged by General Erich von Manstein, he shifted the primary focus of attack in the west from the northern to the southern part of the force that was to invade the Low Countries. They might then cut off Allied units coming to aid the Belgians and the Dutch.
The new strategy at first appeared to work when the Germans in a few days broke through the French defenses and, within ten days, reached the Channel coast behind the Allied forces. Ordering their air force to destroy the cut-off Allied units, the Germans first wanted to turn south to prevent the buildup of a new defensive line, a decision on which the German commander, Gerd von Rundstedt, and Hitler agreed. As it became clear that many Allied soldiers might escape, the direction of the armor was reversed again, but too late to halt the evacuation of much of the British Expeditionary Force and many French soldiers. The thrust southward in early June 1940 brought a swift collapse of remaining French resistance, and this complete victory gave Hitler an aura of triumph, which assured him the enthusiastic support of almost all of Germany’s military leaders, especially as he systematically tied them to himself by generous promotions and a system of mass bribery.
Because it looked as if this war was over, Hitler and the military began planning for the wars against the United States and against the Soviet Union. On July 11, the resumption of construction of the navy to defeat the United States was ordered; by July 31, after first hoping to invade the Soviet Union in the fall of 1940, Hitler, on the advice of his military staff, decided to attack in the east in the late spring of 1941.
As Britain refused to accept defeat, Hitler planned to combine three measures to knock it out of the war: the German air force would destroy the country’s capacity to defend itself; there would be an invasion if Britain did not surrender; and the expected quick defeat of the Soviet Union would remove that country as a possible source of aid for Britain and, by ending any danger to Japan’s rear, encourage that power to move in the Pacific and tie up the United States.
Hitler wanted Japan to join in the war with Britain and promised to join Japan in war with the United States if that was thought necessary by Tokyo, assuming that this would be the other way for Germany to acquire the navy for war with the United States. A short campaign in the Balkans was to secure what he believed might be a vulnerable southern flank; the last step in this, the airborne seizure of Crete, proved so costly that the Germans attempted no major airborne operation thereafter.
The German invasion of the Soviet Union, begun on June 22, 1941, seemed at first to work as planned but quickly ran into trouble. The initial blows, which were supposed to bring the Soviet Union crashing down in a few weeks, did not have that effect. Thereafter, the question always was which sector to attack and whether to retreat. In this, Hitler was at times at odds with some generals, but others always took his position. As the war turned increasingly against Germany, disagreements became more frequent. Hitler still expected to win while some generals were trying to find a less messy way of losing. None advised against going to war with the United States. For the 1942 offensive in the east, Hitler and his military leaders agreed on striking in the south; this project ended in disaster at Stalingrad. A new major offensive in 1943 not only ended in defeat at Kursk but also was followed by the first successful Red Army summer offensive.
When retreats were advocated, Hitler was always concerned about the loss of mat[eacute]riel that could not be hauled back, about the need to reconquer whatever had been given up, and about shorter lines, which released Red Army units for new offensives. Some generals, Erwin Rommel and Walther Model, for example, occasionally acted without or against orders to pull back and were not punished. Others were sent home to collect their monthly bribes in retirement.
As Hitler saw increasing danger from the western Allies, he relied more on Admiral Karl D[odie]nitz to hold them off by submarine warfare. When that effort was blunted in 1943, he both supported the building of new types of submarines and geared strategy on the northern portion of the Eastern Front to protection of the Baltic area, where new submarines and crews could be run in. Enormous resources were also allocated to new weapons designed to destroy London. It was Hitler’s hope that the Germans could drive any Allied troops who landed in the west into the sea and then move substantial forces east in the interval before any second invasion. When this plan failed, Hitler turned to holding all ports as long as possible, to hamper Allied supply lines and to prepare for a counterstroke that would defeat the western Allies. This counterstroke, the Battle of the Bulge, would then provide the opportunity to move forces east after all.
As the Allies closed in on Germany, Hitler increasingly hoped for a split in the alliance he had forged against himself. He believed Germany had lost World War I because of the collapse of the home front and therefore assumed that establishment of a dictatorship and the systematic killing of all Jews would guarantee victory this time. When the end was near, he married his mistress and then committed suicide with her.
The term “Hitler’s War,” sometimes attached to World War II, is accurate at least to some extent; obviously, only the massive energies of the German people, harnessed to his will, made the war possible and made it last so long. But there cannot be any doubt that in harnessing that energy to extraordinary projects and horrible crimes, Hitler placed his stamp on that war and on the twentieth century.
Rolihlahla Mandela was born into the Madiba clan in the village of Mvezo , Transkei, on 18 July 1918. His mother was Nonqaphi Nosekeni and his father was Nkosi Mphakanyiswa Gadla Mandela, principal counsellor to the Acting King of the Thembu people, Jongintaba Dalindyebo. In 1930, when he was 12 years old, his father died and the young Rolihlahla became a ward of Jongintaba at the Great Place in Mqhekezweni 1 .
Hearing the elders’ stories of his ancestors’ valour during the wars of resistance, he dreamed also of making his own contribution to the freedom struggle of his people.
The narrated life and times of Nelson Mandela
He attended primary school in Qunu where his teacher Miss Mdingane gave him the name Nelson, in accordance with the custom to give all school children “Christian” names.
He completed his Junior Certificate at Clarkebury Boarding Institute and went on to Healdtown, a Wesleyan secondary school of some repute, where he matriculated.
Nelson Mandela began his studies for a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University College of Fort Hare but did not complete the degree there as he was expelled for joining in a student protest.
On his return to the Great Place at Mqhekezweni the King was furious and said if he didn’t return to Fort Hare he would arrange wives for him and his cousin Justice. They ran away to Johannesburg instead, arriving there in 1941. There he worked as a mine security officer and after meeting Walter Sisulu, an estate agent, he was introduced to Lazer Sidelsky. He then did his articles through a firm of attorneys, Witkin Eidelman and Sidelsky.
He completed his BA through the University of South Africa and went back to Fort Hare for his graduation in 1943.
Nelson Mandela (top row, second from left) on the steps of Wits University. Image courtesy Andrew Sam
Meanwhile he began studying for an LLB at the University of the Witwatersrand. By his own admission he was a poor student and left the university in 1952 without graduating. He only started studying again through the University of London after his imprisonment in 1962 but also did not complete that degree.
In 1989, while in the last months of his imprisonment, he obtained an LLB through the University of South Africa. He graduated in absentia at a ceremony in Cape Town.
Entering politics
Nelson Mandela, while increasingly politically involved from 1942, only joined the African National Congress in 1944 when he helped to form the ANC Youth League.
In 1944 he married Walter Sisulu’s cousin Evelyn Mase, a nurse. They had two sons, Madiba Thembekile "Thembi" and Makgatho and two daughters both called Makaziwe, the first of whom died in infancy. He and his wife divorced in 1958.
Nelson Mandela rose through the ranks of the ANCYL and through its efforts, the ANC adopted a more radical mass-based policy, the Programme of Action in 1949.
Nelson Mandela on the roof of Kholvad House in 1953. Image courtesy of the A Kathrada Foundation
In 1952 he was chosen at the National Volunteer-in-Chief of the Defiance Campaign with Maulvi Cachalia as his deputy. This campaign of civil disobedience against six unjust laws was a joint programme between the ANC and the South African Indian Congress. He and 19 others were charged under the Suppression of Communism Act for their part in the campaign and sentenced to nine months hard labour, suspended for two years.
A two-year diploma in law on top of his BA allowed Nelson Mandela to practice law, and in August 1952 he and Oliver Tambo established South Africa’s first black law firm, Mandela and Tambo.
At the end of 1952 he was banned for the first time. As a restricted person he was only permitted to watch in secret as the Freedom Charter was adopted in Kliptown on 26 June 1955.
The Treason Trial
Nelson Mandela was arrested in a countrywide police swoop on 5 December 1955, which led to the 1956 Treason Trial. Men and women of all races found themselves in the dock in the marathon trial that only ended when the last 28 accused, including Mandela were acquitted on 29 March 1961.
On 21 March 1960 police killed 69 unarmed people in a protest in Sharpeville against the pass laws. This led to the country’s first state of emergency and the banning of the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress on 8 April. Nelson Mandela and his colleagues in the Treason Trial were among thousands detained during the state of emergency.
During the trial Nelson Mandela married a social worker, Winnie Madikizela, on 14 June 1958. They had two daughters, Zenani and Zindziswa. The couple divorced in 1996.
Days before the end of the Treason Trial Nelson Mandela travelled to Pietermaritzburg to speak at the All-in Africa Conference, which resolved that he should write to Prime Minister Verwoerd requesting a national convention on a non-racial constitution, and to warn that should he not agree there would be a national strike against South Africa becoming a republic. After he and his colleagues were acquitted in the Treason Trial Nelson Mandela went underground and began planning a national strike for 29, 30 and 31 March.
In the face of massive mobilisation of state security the strike was called off early. In June 1961 he was asked to lead the armed struggle and helped to establish Umkhonto weSizwe (Spear of the Nation) which launched on 16 December 1961 with a series of explosions.
Madiba travelled with his Ethiopian passport
On 11 January 1962, using the adopted name David Motsamayi, Nelson Mandela secretly left South Africa. He travelled around Africa and visited England to gain support for the armed struggle. He received military training in Morocco and Ethiopia and returned to South Africa in July 1962. He was arrested in a police roadblock outside Howick on 5 August while returning from KwaZulu-Natal where he had briefed ANC President Chief Albert Luthuli about his trip.
He was charged with leaving the country without a permit and inciting workers to strike. He was convicted and sentenced to five years' imprisonment which he began serving in the Pretoria Local Prison. On 27 May 1963 he was transferred toRobben Island and returned to Pretoria on 12 June. Within a month police raided Liliesleaf, a secret hide-out in Rivonia used by ANC and Communist Party activists, and several of his comrades were arrested.
On 9 October 1963 Nelson Mandela joined ten others on trial for sabotage in what became known as the Rivonia Trial. While facing the death penalty his words to the court at the end of his famous ‘Speech from the Dock’ on 20 April 1964 became immortalised:
Speech from the Dock quote made by Nelson Mandela on 20 April 1964
“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
On 11 June 1964 Nelson Mandela and seven other accused: Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Denis Goldberg, Elias Motsoaledi and Andrew Mlangeni were convicted and the next day were sentenced to life imprisonment. Denis Goldberg was sent to Pretoria Prison because he was white, while the others went to Robben Island.
Nelson Mandela’s mother died in 1968 and his eldest son Thembi in 1969. He was not allowed to attend their funerals.
On 31 March 1982 Nelson Mandela was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town with Sisulu, Mhlaba and Mlangeni. Kathrada joined them in October. When he returned to the prison in November 1985 after prostate surgery Nelson Mandela was held alone. Justice Minister Kobie Coetsee visited him in hospital. Later Nelson Mandela initiated talks about an ultimate meeting between the apartheid government and the ANC.
A picture captured during a rare visit from his comrades at Victor Verster
Release from prison
On 12 August 1988 he was taken to hospital where he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. After more than three months in two hospitals he was transferred on 7 December 1988 to a house at Victor Verster Prison near Paarl where he spent his last 14 months of imprisonment. He was released from its gates on Sunday 11 February 1990, nine days after the unbanning of the ANC and the PAC and nearly four months after the release of his remaining Rivonia comrades. Throughout his imprisonment he had rejected at least three conditional offers of release.
Nelson Mandela immersed himself in official talks to end white minority rule and in 1991 was elected ANC President to replace his ailing friend Oliver Tambo. In 1993 he and President FW de Klerk jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize and on 27 April 1994 he voted for the first time in his life.
President
On 10 May 1994 he was inaugurated South Africa’s first democratically elected President. On his 80th birthday in 1998 he married Graça Machel, his third wife.
True to his promise Nelson Mandela stepped down in 1999 after one term as President. He continued to work with the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund he set up in 1995 and established the Nelson Mandela Foundation and The Mandela Rhodes Foundation.
"It is in your hands" – Mandela Day quote
In April 2007 his grandson Mandla Mandela was installed as head of the Mvezo Traditional Council at a ceremony at the Mvezo Great Place.
Nelson Mandela never wavered in his devotion to democracy, equality and learning. Despite terrible provocation, he never answered racism with racism. His life is an inspiration to all who are oppressed and deprived; and to all who are opposed to oppression and deprivation.
He died at his home in Johannesburg on 5 December 2013.
Mandela tribute video
Reference
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Nelson Mandela's father died in 1930 when Mandela was 12 and his mother died in 1968 when he was in prison. While the autobiography Long Walk to Freedom says his father died when he was 9, historical evidence shows it must have been later, most likely 1930. In fact, the original Long Walk to Freedom manuscript (written on Robben Island) states the year as 1930, when he was 12.
