Convicted of sabotage as the leader of the ANC's armed wing, Mandela was sentenced to 27 years in prison.
He spent 18 of those years on the notorious Robben Island, but his reputation grew steadily outside his four walls.
There he performed hard labour in a lime quarry and suffered primitive living conditions.
In 1990 President de Klerk reversed the ban on anti-apartheid organisations and he was released from Victor Verster Prison on 11th February 1990 in front of the world's media.