April 3

Nelson Mandela, South Africa's nationalist leader, tried to overthrow the apartheid government of his country in 1964. He spent the next twenty-seven years in prison. He was permitted to write and receive one letter every six months, and to have one visitor a year for thirty minutes. He was released from prison in 1990, when he concluded his first speech as a free person. Blacks and whites were able to vote for the first time in 1994, when South Africa held its election. Mandela was South Africa's first black African president due to the outcome of that election.