1990 — Mandela Walks Free

On February 11, 1990, at 4:14 p.m., Nelson Mandela walked out of Victor Verster prison near Cape Town, free after 27 years, six months and one week behind bars. That evening, nearly 60,000 people packed Cape Town's City Hall to hear the 71-year-old speak, in an address watched by tens of millions worldwide.

Four years later, he became South Africa's first Black president. In 1993, he and F. W. de Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize. The walk from that prison gate became one of the century's defining images: a man emerging, unbowed, into the country he would soon lead.