F.W. de Klerk

20th Century

Nelson Mandela walks free after 27 years in prison, delivering a speech calling for negotiation, not revenge. Within four years, apartheid ends and South Afr…

• 1990 CE

  Mandela freed; apartheid's end begins

  Nelson Mandela walks free after 27 years in prison, delivering a speech calling for negotiation, not revenge. Within four years, apartheid ends and South Africa holds its first fully democratic election—a peaceful transition widely seen as a political miracle.