21 interesting facts about Mandela’s life

In honour of a great man and leader, the Addie went on the hunt for some of the more interesting facts about Nelson Mandela’s life.

Here is some of what we found:

• The Madiba, his tribal clan, is part of the Thembu people.
• In 1993, Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize with FW de Klerk for dismantling apartheid.
• Mandela was the first living person to receive an honorary Canadian citizenship.
• He was captured on August 5, 1962 when armed apartheid police flagged down a vehicle driven by Nelson Mandela, pretending to be a chauffeur. He just returned from a clandestine visit to ANC President Chief Albert Luthuli to report on his African quest.
• Upon his capture, he sent a message to Liliesleaf that his papers should be destroyed. A meeting was held in which they were deemed too historically important to destroy, so they were buried in a coal shed at Liliesleaf.
• When his father died, the chief of the Thembu clan, Jongintaba Dalindyebo became his guardian, ensuring he received an excellent education.
• Nelson Mandela once worked as a guard at a mine.
• Nelson Mandela opened the first black legal firm in South Africa with fellow lawyer Oliver Tambo providing free legal counsel to many blacks.
• His tribal name, “Rolihalah,” means “troublemaker.”
• He was charged with high treason but went on the run for several years.
• He pretended to be a gardener at Liliesleaf while on the run.
• Just weeks before his capture, Mandela hid a gun somewhere at Liliesleaf Farm which has never been found.
• In 1947, Mandela was appointed to the position of Secretary at the ANCYL.
• He was expelled from the University of Fort Hare after joining a student protest.
• He fled the Eastern Cape for Johannesburg after Jongintaba Dalindyebo, the leader of the Tembu people, tried to set up an arranged marriage for him.
• He received guerilla training in Morocco and Ethiopia after leaving the country in 1962 to garner support for the armed struggle.
• It is believed that an American CIA agent tipped off the police about his whereabouts just before he was arrested, on what is now the Midlands Meander, outside Howick.
• The apartheid government offered to release him no less than six times but he rejected them each time. On one such occasion Mandela released a statement saying: “I cherish my own freedom dearly but I care even more for your freedom. What freedom am I being offered while the organisation of the people [the ANC] remains banned?”
• He was made an honorary member of the British Labour Party and an honorary member of Manchester United.
• He had a nuclear particle (the ‘Mandela particle’), a prehistoric woodpecker (Australopicus nelsonmandelai) and an orchid (Paravanda Nelson Mandela) named after him.
• He was given the name Nelson by a school teacher.
• Mandela has been called both “the world’s most famous political prisoner” and “South Africa’s Great Black Hope.”