Nelson Mandela Trivia
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100 free Nelson Mandela trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Nelson Mandela trivia quiz follows Rolihlahla Mandela from a Thembu village in the Transkei to the presidency of South Africa. The easy questions cover the basics: how long he was in prison, the island where he spent most of it, the year he walked free, the man he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with, the clan name South Africans call him by and the rugby shirt he wore in 1995. From there it moves through his childhood as a herd boy, the teacher who named him Nelson, the arranged marriage he ran away from, the night-watchman job at a gold mine, the law firm he opened with Oliver Tambo and the years he spent as the 'Black Pimpernel'. The harder end covers the Defiance Campaign, the M-Plan, the Treason Trial, Sharpeville and the burnt pass, Umkhonto we Sizwe, the African tour and Haile Selassie, the CIA tip-off, the kaross in court, the 'I Am Prepared to Die' speech, the lime quarry, the smuggled autobiography, Pollsmoor and Victor Verster, the secret talks with Kobie Coetsee, CODESA, the 63% election, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Lockerbie, his three marriages and the 67 minutes of Mandela Day. Every answer was checked against Mandela's encyclopaedia entry before publishing and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Mahatma Gandhi and South Africa quizzes are natural companions.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many years did Mandela spend in prison?
27
Mandela spent 27 years in prison, from his arrest in August 1962 until 1990, first on Robben Island and then in two mainland prisons.
Q 02What does Mandela's Xhosa forename, Rolihlahla, colloquially mean?
'Troublemaker'
Rolihlahla literally means 'pulling the branch of a tree' in Xhosa, and its colloquial sense is 'troublemaker', a gloss Mandela himself gave in Long Walk to Freedom.
Q 03By what clan name is Mandela affectionately known in South Africa?
Madiba
Madiba is Mandela's clan name, taken from an 18th-century chief who was his ancestor; South Africans used it as an affectionate and respectful form of address.
Q 04In which village was Mandela born on 18 July 1918?
Mvezo
Mandela was born in Mvezo, a small village on the Mbashe River in the Transkei, where his father Gadla was the local chief.
Q 05To which royal family did Mandela belong?
The Thembu
Mandela belonged to the Thembu royal family through its Ixhiba or 'Left-Hand House', a branch of hereditary royal councillors that was ineligible for the throne.
Q 06How many wives did Mandela's father, Chief Gadla, have?
Four
Gadla had four wives; Mandela's mother Nosekeni Fanny was the third, and between them the four wives bore thirteen children, four sons and nine daughters.
Q 07After his father's death, Mandela was entrusted to the guardianship of which regent?
Chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo
Chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo, the acting regent, became Mandela's guardian after his father's death and raised him at the Great Place at Mqhekezweni alongside his own children.
Q 08Which two sports did Mandela pursue in his spare time at Healdtown college?
Long-distance running and boxing
At Healdtown Mandela took up long-distance running and boxing; boxing stayed a lifelong interest, and he was made a prefect in his second year there.
Q 09At which elite black university did Mandela begin a BA in 1939 and befriend a future comrade of decades?
Fort Hare
Mandela enrolled at the University of Fort Hare in 1939 but was sent home in 1940 after a dispute over the Students' Representative Council, and finished his BA by correspondence instead.
Q 10Why did Mandela and his cousin Justice flee to Johannesburg in 1941?
The regent had arranged marriages for them
Mandela and his cousin Justice fled to Johannesburg in 1941 because the regent had arranged marriages for them; Mandela's first job there was night watchman at Crown Mines.
Q 11Which ANC activist and realtor got Mandela his first job as an articled clerk at a Johannesburg law firm?
Walter Sisulu
Walter Sisulu, an ANC activist who ran an estate agency, introduced Mandela to Lazar Sidelsky, whose firm Witkin, Sidelsky and Eidelman took him on as an articled clerk.
Q 12On what day in 1944 was the ANC Youth League founded, with Mandela on its executive?
Easter Sunday
The ANC Youth League was founded on Easter Sunday 1944 at the Bantu Men's Social Centre in Johannesburg; Anton Lembede was its first president and Mandela sat on the executive.
Q 13How many times did Mandela fail his final year of law at Wits before being denied a degree?
Three
Q 21What nickname did the press give Mandela while he travelled incognito in 1961?
The Black Pimpernel
The press dubbed him 'the Black Pimpernel' for evading police while travelling in disguise, a nod to Baroness Orczy's 1905 novel The Scarlet Pimpernel.
Q 22What does Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed group Mandela co-founded in 1961, mean?
'Spear of the Nation'
Umkhonto we Sizwe, abbreviated MK, means 'Spear of the Nation'; it announced its existence with 57 bombings on 16 December 1961.
Q 23Where in Rivonia did Mandela hide with MK comrades in 1961?
Liliesleaf Farm
Mandela lived at Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia from October 1961, posing as a farmhand; the police raid there on 11 July 1963 seized the documents that led to the Rivonia Trial.
Mandela failed his final year at Wits three times and was denied the degree in December 1949; he finally earned an LLB through the University of South Africa in 1989, months before his release.
Q 14How large was the Durban crowd Mandela addressed on 22 June 1952 to launch the Defiance Campaign?
10,000
Mandela addressed a crowd of about 10,000 in Durban on 22 June 1952 to launch the Defiance Campaign, during which ANC membership rose from 20,000 to 100,000.
Q 15Mandela's 1953 speech 'No Easy Walk to Freedom' took its title from a quote by whom?
Jawaharlal Nehru
The title quoted Jawaharlal Nehru's line that there is 'no easy walk to freedom anywhere'; Mandela's 1953 presidential address to the Transvaal ANC was read out for him because he was banned.
Q 16With whom did Mandela open South Africa's only African-run law firm in August 1953?
Oliver Tambo
Mandela and Tambo dealt with many police brutality cases until the Group Areas Act forced them out of their office.
Q 17The 1955 Freedom Charter, drafted by Rusty Bernstein, was adopted at a conference in which township?
Kliptown
The Congress of the People adopted the Freedom Charter at Kliptown, outside Johannesburg, on 25-26 June 1955 before police broke up the gathering; it called for a non-racial state.
Q 18Whom did Mandela marry in Bizana in June 1958?
Winnie Madikizela
Winnie Madikizela, a social worker, married Mandela in Bizana on 14 June 1958; she later endured imprisonment and banishment, and the couple separated in 1992.
Q 19How did the Treason Trial, which began in 1956, end for Mandela in March 1961?
Not guilty
All the accused, Mandela included, were found not guilty on 29 March 1961; the judges ruled the prosecution had not proved the ANC planned violent revolution or was communist.
Q 20How many protesters were killed by police at Sharpeville in 1960?
69
Police killed 69 protesters at Sharpeville on 21 March 1960; Mandela publicly burned his pass in solidarity, and the government banned the ANC and PAC.
Q 24Which emperor did Mandela meet in Addis Ababa in 1962 while touring Africa in secret?
Haile Selassie
Mandela met Emperor Haile Selassie in Addis Ababa in February 1962 while addressing a pan-African conference; he later began guerrilla training in Ethiopia before being recalled home.
Q 25According to a former US diplomat, which agency tipped off South African police before Mandela's 1962 arrest?
The CIA
Donald Rickard, a former US vice-consul in Durban, said in 2016 that the CIA had tipped off the police because it feared Mandela's communist links; he was arrested near Howick on 5 August 1962.
Q 26What did Mandela wear to disrupt his 1962 hearing in Pretoria?
A traditional kaross
Mandela entered the Pretoria court in a traditional kaross, a leopard-skin cloak, to stress that he was a black African in a white man's court; he was sentenced to five years.
Q 27How long was Mandela's 'I Am Prepared to Die' speech at the Rivonia Trial?
Three hours
Mandela spoke for about three hours from the dock on 20 April 1964; the speech, inspired by Castro's 'History Will Absolve Me', had been polished by Nadine Gordimer and Anthony Sampson.
Q 28What punishment did the prosecution seek at the Rivonia Trial before the judge imposed life?
The death sentence
The prosecution pressed for the death sentence, the maximum under the Sabotage Act, but Judge Quartus de Wet instead sentenced Mandela and seven co-accused to life imprisonment on 12 June 1964.
Q 29How big was Mandela's cell on Robben Island?
8 by 7 feet
Mandela's Robben Island cell measured 8 by 7 feet, with a straw mat on the floor to sleep on and a bucket for a toilet.
Q 30As a Class D prisoner, how often was Mandela initially allowed a visit and a letter?
Once every six months
Classified in the lowest category, Class D, Mandela was allowed a visit and a letter only once every six months, and every letter was heavily censored by the authorities.