Nelson Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary and politician who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was born in 1918 in South Africa and was expelled from university for his involvement in a student movement. He went on to help lead the armed resistance against South Africa's apartheid government, for which he was arrested and sentenced to life in prison in 1964. After 27 years in prison, he was released in 1990 and helped negotiate an end to apartheid. He was then elected President in 1994, becoming the country's first Black head of state.