PICS:Nelson Mandela Timeline

. Mandela qualified as a lawyer and in 1952 set up South Africa's first black law firm with Oliver Tambo.In 1956, Mandela was charged with high treason, along with 155 other activists, but the charges against him were dropped after a four-year trial.Resistance to apartheid grew, mainly against the new Pass Laws, which dictated where black people were allowed to live and work. In 1958, Mandela married Winnie Madikizela, who was later to take an active role in the campaign to free her husband from prison.The ANC was outlawed in 1960 and Mandela went underground. Tensions with the apartheid regime grew, and soared to new heights in 1960 when 69 black people were shot dead by police in the Sharpeville massacre.This marked the end of peaceful resistance and Mandela,already national vice-president of the ANC, launched a campaign of economic sabotage.