Nelson Mandella

South Africa's First Post-Apartheid President Thirty years in jail as a political prisoner didn't embitter NELSON MANDELA. One of his greatest regrets, after being released from Robben Island Prison in 1990, was that he forgot to thank the prison guards. So it came as no surprise that, when he was elected president in South Africa's first all-race elections in 1994, he regularly consulted his former captors about his plans to construct a racially integrated, democratic society. The …

…to reconciliation that saved the country from a violent bloodbath. After a messy divorce from his high-profile wife Winnie Madikizela in 1996, he married Graca Machel, widow of former Mozambican president Samora Machel, on his 80th birthday in July 1998. Upon his retirement, he said he planned to enjoy the peace and freedom that took a lifetime to achieve, living in his native Eastern Cape village, spending time with his wife and grandchildren and writing his memoirs.