People around the world are remembering the life and work of Nelson Mandela, who died Thursday at the age of 95.
Mandela will be laid to rest at his ancestral village of Qunu in the Eastern Cape on Dec. 15.A week of national mourning would include an open-air memorial service at Johannesburg’s Soccer City stadium – the site of the 2010 World Cup final – on Dec. 10.
DID YOU KNOW?
- He was born to the Thembu royal family on July 18, 1918.
- He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
- He spent 9,000 days in prison beginning in 1964, a total of 27 years, for plotting to overthrow South Africa’s apartheid regime.He spent 18 of those 27 on Robben Island. As a black political prisoner, Mandela received the lowest level of treatment from prison workers.
- On the 1,550 day after he was released from prison (by a man named F.W. de Klerk, a white Afrikaner leader), he became President of South Africa.
- Mandela was onlyallowed one visitor per year in prison, but still completed an entire law degree from behind bars.
- In the four months leading up to the first fair and free election in South Africa’s history, there were 80 recorded bombingson polling stations, taxi ranks and civilian high traffic areas by white militant groups. When Mandela was elected, he gave his inaugural speech in Afrikaans.
- Mandela strongly advocated for equality and peace between races; to do so, he worked to bring about the transition from minority rule and apartheid to black majority rule.
- He used the nation’s enthusiasm for sports as a way to promote reconciliation between whites and blacks, encouraging black South Africans to support the once-hated national rugby team.
- The former president died after suffering from a recurring lung infection for the past few months. In July, Mandela was admitted to a hospital after his chronic lung infection persisted; he had been hospitalized several times in recent months and had been particularly vulnerable to respiratory problems since contracting tuberculosis in prison.
- Thanks to a sanction by the UN,July 18 is Nelson Mandela Dayacross the world. No other single individual is honored with such a day.