• He was born in a small village named Mvezo on 18 July 1918,
• His father was a tribal chief in Mvezo, Mandela's father had four wives and thirteen children (four boys, nine girls) the third wife was Mandela's mother. ('third' by a complex royal ranking system)
• His given name Rolihlahla means "to pull a branch of a tree", or, "troublemaker"
  
• Rolihlahla Mandela became the first member of his family to go to school, where his teacher gave him the English name "Nelson"
  

Before becoming president he was a militant anti-apartheid activist, Mandela also became the leader and co-founder of the ANC's (African National Congress) armed wing, he coordinated sabotage campaigns against military and government targets.

Mandela led a bombing campaign that was to bomb symbolic places like courts, post offices, government offices and things like that, but he was to do it in such a way that no one would be hurt nor killed.

Mandela described the move to armed struggle as a last resort; years of increasing repression and violence from the state convinced him that many years of non-violent protest against apartheid had not and could not achieve any progress.

In 1962 Mandela was arrested for sabotage and other charges, he was sentence to life in prison. He served 27 years in prison spending most of the years on Robben island. The Ban on ANC and other anti-apartheid groups was reversed and Mandela was released from prison on the 11 February 1990

In my opinion, Nelson Mandela was trying to stop racial segregation, he did not want to hurt anyone, all he wanted was to state his point and be heard.

• Wikipedia
• allAfrica
• Wolfie Interview
• BBC