PICS:Nelson Mandela Timeline

Popular pressure led world leaders to tighten the sanctions first imposed on South Africa in 1967 against the apartheid regime. The pressure produced results, and in 1990, President F W de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC, and Mandela was released from prison as talks on forming a new multi-racial democracy for South Africa began.He remained in prison on Robben Island for 18 years before being transferred to Pollsmoor Prison on the mainland in 1982. Huge crowds greeted Nelson Mandela's release. In December 1993, Mandela and Klerk were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Five months later, for the first time in South Africa's history, all races voted in democratic elections and Mandela was overwhelmingly elected president. Since stepping down as president in 1999, Mandela has become South Africa's highest-profile ambassador, campaigning against HIV/Aids and helping to secure his country's right to host the 2010 football World Cup.