PHOTOS: Nelson Mandela, Life In Pictures

Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first black president, is dead at 95. Mandela was one of the most beloved world leaders, both at home and abroad, in a generation.

Nelson Mandela Lived an extraordinary life, a life so inspiring and below is some of the pictures that defined legend of a man whose looming large personality will be missed by all








Nelson Mandela and his second wife Winnie at their wedding, in 1957.
(Alf Khumalo - AFP/Getty Images)





Mandela, with his third wife Graca Machel, made one of his last public appearances at the 2010 soccer World Cup final in Johannesburg, on July 11, 2010.
(Clive Rose - Getty Images)

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After his presidency, Mandela became a powerful advocate for AIDS awareness. Here he is launching his '46664 - Give 1 minute of your life to stop AIDS' campaign in October 2003. (46664 was his prison number on Robben Island.)
(Scott Barbour - Getty Images)



Mandela in London's Trafalgar Square, during a state visit in July 1996.
(POOL - AFP/Getty Images)





In 1995, Mandela revisited his former cell in the notorious Robben Island prison, off the coast of Cape Town, where he spent 19 of his 27 years in jail.
(GUY TILLIM - AFP/Getty Images)





President Mandela receives the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's final report from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 29 October 1998. Mandela acknowledged that the wounds of the period of repression and resistance were too deep to have been healed by the TRC alone.
(WALTER DHLADHLA - AFP/Getty Images)



President Mandela shakes hands with Bertie Verwoerd, the 94-year-old widow of the late prime minister and architect of apartheid, Hendriek French Verwoerd, in Orania, a whites-only settlement founded in 1991. Mandela said the purpose of his visit was '"to unite South Africa where we cease to think in terms of color."
(WALTER DHLADHLA - Antler)


President Mandela congratulates South Africa's rugby team captain, François Pienaar, after his team's victory over New Zealand in the final of the Rugby World Cup at Ellis Park in Johannesburg, 24 June 1995.
(JEAN-PIERRE MULLER - AFP/Getty Images)


President Mandela celebrates the signing of South Africa's new constitution, on Dec. 10, 1996, in Sharpville stadium. The constitution is considered one of the most progressive in the world.
(WALTER DHLADHLA - AFP/Getty Images)

Nelson Mandela was sworn in as president at the Union Building in Pretoria, 10 May 1994, with new Vice-President Thabo Mbeki at his side. Mbeki would go on to be South Africa's second black president, after Mandela retired.
(WALTER DHLADHLA - AFP/Getty Images)

Mandela casts his vote in South Africa's first democratic and all-race general elections, April 27, 1994. The day is now celebrated in South Africa as Freedom Day.
(WALTER DHLADHLA - AFP/Getty Images)


South Africa held its first non-racial elections in 1994, ending more than three centuries of white domination and 46 years of apartheid rule. Here, Mandela's supporters wait for him to speak at a campaign rally in KwaZulu/Natal province, April 16, 1994.
(ALEXANDER JOE - AFP/Getty Images)



Mandela was welcomed as a hero abroad after his release. Here, he speaks at UN headquarters in 1990, where he urged the world to maintain sanctions on South Africa until apartheid was dismantled.
(DON EMMERT - AFP/Getty Images)



Nelson Mandela was jointly awarded the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with South African President Frederik de Klerk, for their work to end apartheid peacefully. De Klerk resigned as leader of the South African National Party in 1997, having served as Mandela's second deputy president until 1996.
(GERARD JULIEN - AFP/Getty Images)


A young supporter welcomes Nelson Mandela on a visit to Soweto township, 1 Oct 1990.
(ALEXANDER JOE - AFP/Getty Images)





Mandela addresses a rally at celebrate his release, at Soccer City Stadium in Soweto, 13 February 1990. More than 100,000 people attended.(WALTER DHLADHLA - AFP/Getty Images)

Free at last

  Jubilation in  Soweto as the apartheid government announces that Nelson Mandela will be released, 10 February 1990.
(TREVOR SAMSON - AFP/Getty Images)

Nelson Mandela would spend a total of 27 years in prison. Here, his daughter Zinzi campaigns for him and other anti-apartheid activists to be released, on 29 August, 1985 at the campus of the Cape Town University.
(GIDEON MENDEL - AFP/Getty Images)





Eight men, including Nelson Mandela, leave the Palace of Justice in Pretoria on 16 June, 1964, following the Rivonia trial. They had just been sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiracy, sabotage and treason. Their raised fists are a symbol of the anti-apartheid African National Congress, and defiance.
(OFF - AFP/Getty Images)