Tug of War (Paul McCartney album)
Tug of War is the third solo studio album by Paul McCartney, released in April 1982. It was McCartney's first album released after the dissolution of Wings in April, 1981. Overall it was his 11th album since the break up of the Beatles, it was McCartney's first album after the murder of former songwriting partner John Lennon. The album was produced by former Beatles producer George Martin and was a number one hit in many countries; some critics hailed it as a return to form for McCartney. Its remastered deluxe edition received a nomination for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package at the 2017 Grammy Awards. Following the release of the solo album McCartney II, Wings regrouped in July and October 1980 to rehearse several songs which appeared on Tug of War and Pipes of Peace. Feeling the need for direction, McCartney called upon his old producer, George Martin, to begin recording a song written for the animated Rupert Bear character, entitled "We All Stand Together", among others; the productive sessions continued until 9 December, the morning McCartney woke up to discover his old songwriting partner and fellow ex-Beatle, John Lennon, had been shot and killed the night before in New York City.
Abandoning that day's session part-way through, both Martin and McCartney felt it was best to leave the project for the time being and start anew once they were ready. In February 1981, two months after Lennon's death, McCartney resumed the sessions, recording that month with Stevie Wonder, Stanley Clarke, Carl Perkins and Ringo Starr and laying down several songs in the process; the sessions were held at AIR Studios in Montserrat, in the Caribbean, lasted from 3 February to 2 March, ending with "Ebony and Ivory" and "What's That You're Doing", two songs featuring Stevie Wonder. 10cc guitarist Eric Stewart became a frequent collaborator of McCartney's during this period. Further sessions that summer were undertaken at Martin's AIR studios at London; the sessions were so productive that several of its tracks were held over for McCartney's next album, Pipes of Peace, which followed in 1983. The rest of 1981 was spent in a quiet fashion, with McCartney and Martin touching up the album and perfecting it.
In a contemporary review for Rolling Stone, music critic Stephen Holden hailed Tug of War as "the masterpiece everyone has always known Paul McCartney could make", admired its vivid music and consistent songwriting. Robert Palmer was less enthusiastic in his review for The New York Times and found the album "exquisitely crafted though lyrically flawed", as he thought McCartney's lyrics were "cliched or mawkish", but that the album "at its best, is as finely crafted as his work with the Beatles". In March 1982, McCartney's duet with Stevie Wonder, "Ebony and Ivory", was released to considerable commercial success, reaching number one in many countries. Tug of War followed in April, became a worldwide number one; the follow-up single, "Take It Away", reached the top ten in the United States. The album went on to sell several million copies and did much to restore McCartney's critical reputation after what was viewed as a lean period for him. Tug of War was nominated for the "Album of the Year" Grammy in 1983.
Wingspan author Mark Lewisohn thought it a better album than Band On The Run. The album was issued in the US on compact disc on 29 February 1984. In 1993, Tug of War was remastered and re-issued on CD as part of "The Paul McCartney Collection" series. There were no bonus tracks: "Rainclouds" and "I'll Give You a Ring", B-sides of "Ebony and Ivory" and "Take It Away" were omitted. In 2007, Tug of War was remastered and re-released on the iTunes Store adding a solo version of "Ebony and Ivory". A further reissue of Tug of War was released on 2 October 2015, as part of the Paul McCartney Archive Collection; this edition included a remixed version of the album, along with the original mix, a series of videos. All songs were written by Paul McCartney, except "What's That You're Doing?" co-written by Stevie Wonder Side one"Tug of War" – 4:22 "Take It Away" – 4:14 "Somebody Who Cares" – 3:19 "What's That You're Doing?" – 6:19 "Here Today" – 2:27Side two"Ballroom Dancing" – 4:07 "The Pound Is Sinking" – 2:54 "Wanderlust" – 3:49 "Get It" – 2:29 "Be What You See" – 0:34 "Dress Me Up as a Robber" – 2:41 "Ebony and Ivory" – 3:46iTunes bonus track"Ebony and Ivory" – 3:46 B-side to "Ebony and Ivory" single In 2015 the album was re-issued by Hear Music/Concord Music Group as part of the sixth set of releases, alongside Pipes Of Peace, in the Paul McCartney Archive Collection.
It was released in multiple formats: Standard Edition 2-CD. Deluxe Edition 3CD/1DVD Box Set + 64 page scrapbook. Digital Standard: Standard Res - without Ebooklet Standard Res – with Ebooklet Mastered for iTunes – without Ebooklet Hi-Res - 24-bit/96 kHz – with Ebooklet Deluxe: Standard Res Mastered for iTunes Hi-Res - 24-bit/96 kHz Disc 1 – remixed albumRemixed version of the original 12-track album. Disc 2 – original album The original 12-track album. Bonus Audio"Stop, You Don't Know Where She Came From" – 1:44 "Wanderlust" – 1:46 "
Denny Laine
Denny Laine is an English musician and songwriter known as a founder of two major British rock bands: The Moody Blues, with whom he played from 1964 to 1966, Paul McCartney and Wings, with whom he played from 1971 to 1981. Laine has worked with a variety of artists and groups over a six decade career, continues to record and perform as a solo artist. In 2018, Laine was inducted into the Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Moody Blues. Laine was born in Tyseley, where he attended Yardley Grammar School, took up the guitar as a boy, inspired by gypsy jazz musician Django Reinhardt, he gave his first solo performance as a musician at the age of 12 and began his career as a professional musician fronting Denny Laine & the Diplomats, which included future Move and Electric Light Orchestra drummer Bev Bevan. In 1964, Laine left the Diplomats, shortly afterwards, he received a call from Ray Thomas and Mike Pinder to form a new band, The M&B 5, changed to The Moody Blues and sang the group's first big hit, "Go Now".
He sang on "Can't Nobody Love You" and "Bye Bye Bird", a hit in France. A self-titled EP and The Magnificent Moodies LP on Decca followed. Laine and Pinder wrote most of the band's B-sides during the 1965-66 period, such as "You Don't", "And My Baby's Gone" and "This Is My House". However, Laine's tenure with the band was short-lived and, after a number of comparative chart failures, Laine quit the band in October 1966, he was replaced by Justin Hayward. The last record issued by the Moody Blues that featured Laine was "Life's Not Life" b/w "He Can Win" in January 1967. A compilation album of singles and album tracks of the early Moody Blues led by Denny Laine titled An Introduction to The Moody Blues was released in 2006. After leaving the Moody Blues, Laine formed the Electric String Band in December 1966, which featured himself on guitar and vocals, Trevor Burton on guitar, Viv Prince on drums, Binky McKenzie on bass guitar, electrified strings in a format not dissimilar to what Electric Light Orchestra would achieve.
In June 1967, the band shared a bill with the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Procol Harum at the Saville Theatre in London. However, it did not achieve national attention, the Electric String Band broke up. At the same time, Laine recorded two singles as a solo artist: "Say You Don't Mind"/"Ask The People" and "Too Much in Love"/"Catherine's Wheel". Both failed to chart, although "Say You Don't Mind" became a #15 hit in 1972 when recorded by former Zombies frontman Colin Blunstone. Laine and Burton went on to the band Balls from February 1969 until the band's breakup in 1971, with both taking time to play in Ginger Baker's Air Force in 1970. Only one single was issued by Balls: "Fight for My Country" / "Slow Down" on UK Wizard Records; the top side was re-edited and reissued on UK Wizard and issued in the UK on Wizard and in the United States on Epic under the name of Trevor Burton. The single was reissued again as B. L. W. as "Live in the Mountains" for a small Pye-distributed label, "Paladin". Twelve tracks were recorded for a Balls album.
In 1971, Laine joined Paul McCartney to form Wings, stayed with the group for 10 years until it disbanded in 1981. Laine provided lead and rhythm guitars and backing vocals, bass guitar and woodwinds, as well as writing or co-writing some of the group's material. Laine, McCartney, McCartney's wife, Linda McCartney formed the nucleus of the band to which it was reduced twice; the most acclaimed Wings album Band on the Run and most part of London Town were written and recorded by Wings as a trio. Denny Laine was the most frequent contributor to the songwriting process and as lead vocalist, he wrote and sang several songs himself, co-wrote a number of compositions on Band on the Run and London Town albums as well as non-album single "Mull of Kintyre", sang lead vocals on McCartney’s songs in full and partly. During Wings live shows Denny Laine performed "Go Now", his hit with the Moody Blues. During his time in Wings Denny Laine released two solo albums, Ahh... Laine! and Holly Days. The latter was recorded by Wings core trio of Denny and Linda.
With Wings, Laine enjoyed the biggest commercial and critical successes of his career. "Mull of Kintyre", co-written by Laine, became a hit reaching #1 in the UK in 1977 and becoming the UK's highest-selling single until 1984. "Deliver Your Children" from London Town, co-written and sung by Laine, was released as a double A-side with "I've Had Enough" in the Netherlands and charted at #13. After Paul McCartney was arrested for possession of marijuana on arrival at an airport for a Wings tour in Japan in January 1980 the band's future became uncertain and Denny Laine released his third solo album, Japanese Tears, with the title track as the single; the album was notable to include several songs recorded by Wings over the years. Laine formed the short-lived Denny Laine Band with Wings member Steve Holley. Though Wings reunited in late 1980, on 27 April 1981, Laine announced he was leaving Wings due to McCartney's reluctance to tour in the wake of John Lennon's murder. After leaving Wings Denny Laine signed with Scratch records and rel
Spike Milligan
Terence Alan Milligan, known as Spike Milligan, was a British-Irish comedian, poet and actor. The son of an Irish father and an English mother, Milligan was born in India where he spent his childhood, before returning to live and work the majority of his life in the United Kingdom. Disliking his first name, he began to call himself "Spike" after hearing the band Spike Jones and his City Slickers on Radio Luxembourg. Milligan was the co-creator, main writer and a principal cast member of the British radio programme The Goon Show, performing a range of roles including the Eccles and Minnie Bannister characters, he was the longest-lived and last surviving member of the Goons. Milligan parlayed success with the Goon Show into television with Q5, a surreal sketch show credited as a major influence on the members of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Milligan wrote and edited many books, including Puckoon and a seven-volume autobiographical account of his time serving during the Second World War, beginning with Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall.
He wrote comical verse, with much of his poetry written for children, including Silly Verse for Kids. When the Commonwealth Immigrants Act removed Indian-born Milligan's automatic right to British citizenship in 1962, he became an Irish citizen, exercising a right conferred through his Irish-born father. Milligan was born in Ahmednagar, India, on 16 April 1918, the son of an Irish father, Captain Leo Alphonso Milligan, MSM, RA, serving in the British Indian Army, his mother, Florence Mary Winifred, was English. He spent his childhood in Poona and in Rangoon, capital of British Burma, he was educated at the Convent of Jesus and Mary, at St Paul's High School, Rangoon. When he traveled, by sea, from India to England for the first time, he arrived on a winter's morning and was bemused by the climate, so different from India's, remembering the dock's "terrible noise, everything so cold and grey." After moving to Brockley, south east London from the age of 12 in 1931, he attended Brownhill Road School and St Saviours School, Lewisham High Road.
On leaving school he discovered jazz. He joined Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, who were gaining support near his home in south London. After returning from Burma, Milligan lived most of his life in the United Kingdom apart from overseas service in the British Army in the Royal Artillery during the Second World War. During most of the late 1930s and early 1940s, Milligan performed as an amateur jazz vocalist and trumpeter before and after being called up for military service in the fight against Nazi Germany, but then he wrote and performed comedy sketches as part of concerts to entertain troops. After his call-up, but before being sent abroad, he and fellow musician Harry Edgington would compose surreal stories, filled with puns and skewed logic, as a way of staving off the boredom of life in barracks. One biographer describes his early dance band work as follows: "He managed to croon like Bing Crosby and win a competition: he played drums and trumpet, in which he was self taught".
Milligan had perfect pitch. During the Second World War, Milligan served as a signaller in the 56th Heavy Regiment Royal Artillery, D Battery, as Gunner Milligan, 954024; the unit was equipped with the obsolete First World War era BL 9.2-inch howitzer and based in Bexhill on the south coast of England. Milligan describes training with these guns in part two of Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall, claiming that, during training, gun crews resorted to shouting "bang" in unison as they had no shells with which to practise; the unit was re-equipped with the BL 7.2-inch howitzer and saw action as part of the First Army in the North African campaign and in the succeeding Italian campaign. Milligan was appointed lance bombardier and was about to be promoted to bombardier, when he was wounded in action in the Italian theatre at the Battle of Monte Cassino. Subsequently, hospitalised for a mortar wound to the right leg and shell shock, he was demoted by an unsympathetic commanding officer back to Gunner.
It was Milligan's opinion that Major Jenkins did not like him, because Milligan kept up the morale of his fellow soldiers, whereas Jenkins's approach was to take an attitude towards the troops similar to that of Lord Kitchener. An incident mentioned was when Jenkins had invited Gunners Milligan and Edgington to his bivouac to play some jazz with him, only to discover that the musicianship of the gunners was far superior to his own ability to play the military tune "Whistling Rufus". After hospitalisation, Milligan drifted through a number of rear-echelon military jobs in Italy becoming a full-time entertainer, he played the guitar with a jazz and comedy group called The Bill Hall Trio, in concert parties for the troops. After being demobilised, Milligan remained in Italy playing with the trio but returned to Britain soon after. While he was with the Central Pool of Artists he began to write parodies of their mainstream plays, which displayed many of the key elements of what would become The Goon Show with Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine.
Milligan returned to jazz in the late 1940s and made a precarious living with the Hal
Temporary Secretary
"Temporary Secretary" is a song by Paul McCartney, featured on his 1980 album McCartney II. In 2013, Rolling Stone ranked it the #36 all-time McCartney post-Beatles song, calling it a "cult favorite" and an "oddly catchy electro-pop nugget, about a creepy-sounding guy looking to hire a temp." In 2014, "Temporary Secretary" was ranked as one of the greatest songs of all time by critics of NME magazine. They described it as "wonky electropop that didn't sound so much ahead of its time as out of it altogether." It's like a disposable secretary, it struck me as being funny. The song is written from the point of view of a fellow who just wants a disposable secretary, he's writing to a bureau to try and get one. I just like the idea. I just thought it was funny, you know, asking for a temporary secretary rather than a secretary.... That sound on the track, like a space typewriter, is a sequence machine. I used that to give me a tempo and, again, I just made the song up as I went along, it was a little influenced by Ian Dury.
McCartney said that he had had temporary secretaries, that there was a real Mr. Marks. After I left Apple I still had business stuff coming up, so in trying to figure out how I could cope with that there were a couple of times I just grabbed someone to just put my letters in order and help, but that track isn't about a specific person. What it's about is, there was a guy called Alfred Marks, he had the Alfred Marks Bureau - he had the same name as a comedian on the radio when I was growing up. So it was just the funny paradox of seeing adverts for the Alfred Marks Bureau, the idea of some comedian having a bureau was just funny, it said'Temporary Secretary', I thought, that's a kind of funky thought. There was the secretary thing: take a letter Miss Smith, sit on my lap... all that kind of stuff. "Temporary Secretary" was released as a third single from the album only in a form of 12" single, along with the ten-minute "Secret Friend" as its B-side, limited to 25000 copies and therefore failed to chart.
A 7" single exists only as a demo for radio stations. It exemplifies both the whimsical nature of the album and McCartney's use of synthesizers and other electronics in the creation of the album. McCartney claims that he viewed the song as an "experiment." It was never performed live until more than thirty years at the O2 Arena in London on May 23, 2015. Music website Allmusic.com said of the album, McCartney II: In contrast, music website popmatters.com said, in reviewing the 2011 reissue of McCartney II: Beatles biographers Roy Carr and Tony Tyler describe the song as being built from an initial, repetitive synthesizer theme, with more substantial instrumental portions added over time, an insubstantial vocal. They complain that the song was done without commitment and that it "grows irritating towards the end." 12" single"Temporary Secretary" — 3:13 "Secret Friend" — 10:30 Paul McCartney — vocals, bass, drums 2005 — Mexican group Los Fancy Free, on "Out of place" CD 2011 — German girl band Damenkapelle, Damenkapelle 2015 — Darkstar and Hayden Thorpe 2017 — English DJ Riton sampled the synthesizer melody for a track of the same name
Single (music)
In the music industry, a single is a type of release a song recording of fewer tracks than an LP record or an album. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, a single is a song, released separately from an album, although it also appears on an album; these are the songs from albums that are released separately for promotional uses such as digital download or commercial radio airplay and are expected to be the most popular. In other cases a recording released. Despite being referred to as a single, singles can include up to as many as three tracks; the biggest digital music distributor, iTunes Store, accepts as many as three tracks less than ten minutes each as a single, as does popular music player Spotify. Any more than three tracks on a musical release or thirty minutes in total running time is either an extended play or, if over six tracks long, an album; when mainstream music was purchased via vinyl records, singles would be released double-sided.
That is to say, they were released with an A-side and B-side, on which two singles would be released, one on each side. Moreover, only the most popular songs from a released album would be released as a single. In more contemporary forms of music consumption, artists release most, if not all, of the tracks on an album as singles; the basic specifications of the music single were set in the late 19th century, when the gramophone record began to supersede phonograph cylinders in commercially produced musical recordings. Gramophone discs were manufactured in several sizes. By about 1910, the 10-inch, 78 rpm shellac disc had become the most used format; the inherent technical limitations of the gramophone disc defined the standard format for commercial recordings in the early 20th century. The crude disc-cutting techniques of the time and the thickness of the needles used on record players limited the number of grooves per inch that could be inscribed on the disc surface, a high rotation speed was necessary to achieve acceptable recording and playback fidelity.
78 rpm was chosen as the standard because of the introduction of the electrically powered, synchronous turntable motor in 1925, which ran at 3600 rpm with a 46:1 gear ratio, resulting in a rotation speed of 78.26 rpm. With these factors applied to the 10-inch format and performers tailored their output to fit the new medium; the 3-minute single remained the standard into the 1960s, when the availability of microgroove recording and improved mastering techniques enabled recording artists to increase the duration of their recorded songs. The breakthrough came with Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone". Although CBS tried to make the record more "radio friendly" by cutting the performance into halves, separating them between the two sides of the vinyl disc, both Dylan and his fans demanded that the full six-minute take be placed on one side, that radio stations play the song in its entirety; as digital downloading and audio streaming have become more prevalent, it has become possible for every track on an album to be available separately.
The concept of a single for an album has been retained as an identification of a more promoted or more popular song within an album collection. The demand for music downloads skyrocketed after the launch of Apple's iTunes Store in January 2001 and the creation of portable music and digital audio players such as the iPod. In September 1997, with the release of Duran Duran's "Electric Barbarella" for paid downloads, Capitol Records became the first major label to sell a digital single from a well-known artist. Geffen Records released Aerosmith's "Head First" digitally for free. In 2004, Recording Industry Association of America introduced digital single certification due to significant sales of digital formats, with Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" becoming RIAA's first platinum digital single. In 2013, RIAA incorporated on-demand streams into the digital single certification. Single sales in the United Kingdom reached an all-time low in January 2005, as the popularity of the compact disc was overtaken by the then-unofficial medium of the music download.
Recognizing this, On 17 April 2005, Official UK Singles Chart added the download format to the existing format of physical CD singles. Gnarls Barkley was the first act to reach No.1 on this chart through downloads alone in April 2006, for their debut single "Crazy", released physically the following week. On 1 January 2007 digital downloads became eligible from the point of release, without the need for an accompanying physical. Sales improved in the following years, reaching a record high in 2008 that still proceeded to be overtaken in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Singles have been issued in various formats, including 7-inch, 10-inch, 12-inch vinyl discs. Other, less common, formats include singles on Digital Compact Cassette, DVD, LD, as well as many non-standard sizes of vinyl disc; the most common form of the vinyl single is the 45 or 7-inch. The names are derived from its play speed, 45 rpm, the standard diameter, 7 inches; the 7-inch 45 rpm record was released 31 March 1949 by RCA Victor as a smaller, more durable and higher-fidelity replacement for the 78 rpm shellac discs.
The first 45
Dante (Devil May Cry)
Dante is a fictional character first introduced as the protagonist of the 2001 action game Devil May Cry created and published by Capcom. In the first four games Dante is a mercenary, private investigator and demon-hunting vigilante dedicated to exterminating them and other supernatural foes, a mission he follows in pursuit of those who killed his mother and corrupted his brother, he is the son of a powerful demon. The character appears in several Devil May Cry novels and manga volumes, is featured in the 2007 anime television series. Dante has made multiple guest appearances in crossover games, has been voiced by several different actors. An alternate version of the character was created by Ninja Theory for their game DmC: Devil May Cry, set in a separate universe to the main series. Named after the Italian poet Dante Alighieri, the character was designed to fit Devil May Cry game designer Hideki Kamiya's vision of a "cool and stylish" man. Dante has been modified in response to criticism of his role in the first sequel.
Capcom handles the character in the main Devil May Cry series, while Ninja Theory was in charge of his persona in DmC: Devil May Cry. Dante's characterization as a cocky demon hunter with supernatural abilities has turned him into one of the most iconic protagonists in gaming. Reuben Langdon's voice acting has been the subject of praise due to the tone he gives to the character. Comparatively, his redesign and characterization in DmC: Devil May Cry was seen as controversial. Dante debuted in Devil May Cry, a game intended as part of Capcom's Resident Evil franchise. Series creator Hideki Kamiya rewrote the story. According to Kamiya, the title character of Buichi Terasawa's Cobra manga series was the basis of Dante's personality, he based the character's idea on "stylishness", dressing him in a long coat to make him "showy" and making him a non-smoker. Dante wears red in contrast to Leon S. Kennedy, another character Kamiya created for Resident Evil 2. Kamiya said that he saw Dante as "a character that you would want to go out drinking with", someone, not a show-off but would instead "pull some ridiculous, mischievous joke" to endear people to him.
When asked about the relationship between Dante and Trish, Kamiya stated their bond was superior to love. Although Kamiya was not the main writer of the first two Devil May Cry novels, he saw Shinya Goikeda's depiction of Dante as similar to his own. In development, Dante was called Tony Redgrade and did not carry a sword. Artist Yuichiro Hiraki felt Dante looked like a "nihilistic anti-hero with a bit of a dark side", based on his early concept art by character designer Makoto Tsuchibayashi; as a result, he wrote him as a character. Shortly after the game's development, Kamiya said that his personality would be more animated and the Devil Trigger was downplayed. Hiraki began drawing the character stylishly, working on Dante's gameplay, his swordsmanship Stinger and his handling of the guns. Other gameplay elements were based on the fighting-game series Virtua Tekken. Dante's use of a shotgun was retained for Capcom's horror game, Resident Evil 4. Devil May Cry was designed from the ground up around Dante's acrobatics and combat abilities.
After the success of the first Devil May Cry game, Capcom inserted Dante into a game in development. The forced development of the game matured his characterization. Dante's change to a more-taciturn character was the decision of a producer who disliked his previous incarnation; the staff aimed to make him look older than his original self, implying that something dramatic had happened to change his personality. Dante and Lucia in Diesel fashions appealed to the developers; the staff still felt that Dante's stylishness remained true to the original character because of his movements. Daigo Ikeno was responsible for Dante's appearance in Devil May Cry 2 and 3. In developing the former, he attempted to make Dante more handsome. In retrospect, Ikeno was disappointed with the character's inaction in the game. In the prequel game, Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, Dante was a younger, more arrogant character than in the previous installments; the designers of Devil May Cry 2 returned to design his new look, based on the Japanese band Johnnys.
Dante exposed more skin under a jacket, which the staff believed would fit his younger persona. Trying to remain true to Kamiya's original take, the staff worked to make his actions and personality appealing. Bingo Morihashi said that Dante's characterization was meant as a departure from Kamiya's style, more of a team effort. According to Morihashi, despite seeing the character in three games he had trouble understanding him. Although Dante is a strong character, he opens up to others. Fan response to this Dante led Morihashi to say that the team was inspired by the Devil May Cry Dante, but needed to change him; the character's role in facing the world impacted the writer. Dante and Vergil's relationship represents one of the themes of Devil May Cry 3: familial love. While initially
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader, philanthropist who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a representative democratic election, his government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by tackling institutionalised racism and fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as President of the African National Congress party from 1991 to 1997. A Xhosa, Mandela was born to the Thembu royal family in British South Africa, he studied law at the University of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. There he became involved in anti-colonial and African nationalist politics, joining the ANC in 1943 and co-founding its Youth League in 1944. After the National Party's white-only government established apartheid, a system of racial segregation that privileged whites, he and the ANC committed themselves to its overthrow.
Mandela was appointed President of the ANC's Transvaal branch, rising to prominence for his involvement in the 1952 Defiance Campaign and the 1955 Congress of the People. He was arrested for seditious activities and was unsuccessfully prosecuted in the 1956 Treason Trial. Influenced by Marxism, he secretly joined the banned South African Communist Party. Although committed to non-violent protest, in association with the SACP he co-founded the militant Umkhonto we Sizwe in 1961 and led a sabotage campaign against the government, he was arrested and imprisoned in 1962, subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiring to overthrow the state following the Rivonia Trial. Mandela served 27 years in prison, split between Robben Island, Pollsmoor Prison, Victor Verster Prison. Amid growing domestic and international pressure, with fears of a racial civil war, President F. W. de Klerk released him in 1990. Mandela and de Klerk led efforts to negotiate an end to apartheid, which resulted in the 1994 multiracial general election in which Mandela led the ANC to victory and became president.
Leading a broad coalition government which promulgated a new constitution, Mandela emphasised reconciliation between the country's racial groups and created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses. Economically, Mandela's administration retained its predecessor's liberal framework despite his own socialist beliefs introducing measures to encourage land reform, combat poverty, expand healthcare services. Internationally, he acted as mediator in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial and served as Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1998 to 1999, he declined a second presidential term, in 1999 was succeeded by his deputy, Thabo Mbeki. Mandela became an elder statesman and focused on combating poverty and HIV/AIDS through the charitable Nelson Mandela Foundation. Mandela was a controversial figure for much of his life. Although critics on the right denounced him as a communist terrorist and those on the far-left deemed him too eager to negotiate and reconcile with apartheid's supporters, he gained international acclaim for his activism.
Regarded as an icon of democracy and social justice, he received more than 250 honours—including the Nobel Peace Prize—and became the subject of a cult of personality. He is held in deep respect within South Africa, where he is referred to by his Xhosa clan name and described as the "Father of the Nation". Mandela was born on 18 July 1918 in the village of Mvezo in Umtata part of South Africa's Cape Province. Given the forename Rolihlahla, a Xhosa term colloquially meaning "troublemaker", in years he became known by his clan name, Madiba, his patrilineal great-grandfather, was king of the Thembu people in the Transkeian Territories of South Africa's modern Eastern Cape province. One of Ngubengcuka's sons, named Mandela, was the source of his surname; because Mandela was the king's child by a wife of the Ixhiba clan, a so-called "Left-Hand House", the descendants of his cadet branch of the royal family were morganatic, ineligible to inherit the throne but recognised as hereditary royal councillors.
Nelson Mandela's father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa Mandela, was a local chief and councillor to the monarch. In 1926, Gadla was sacked for corruption, but Nelson was told that his father had lost his job for standing up to the magistrate's unreasonable demands. A devotee of the god Qamata, Gadla was a polygamist with four wives, four sons and nine daughters, who lived in different villages. Nelson's mother was Gadla's third wife, Nosekeni Fanny, daughter of Nkedama of the Right Hand House and a member of the amaMpemvu clan of the Xhosa. Mandela stated that his early life was dominated by traditional Thembu custom and taboo, he grew up with two sisters in his mother's kraal in the village of Qunu, where he tended herds as a cattle-boy and spent much time outside with other boys. Both his parents were illiterate, but being a devout Christian, his mother sent him to a local Methodist school when he was about seven. Baptised a Methodist, Mandela was given the English forename of "Nelson" by his teacher.
When Mandela was about nine, his father came to stay at Qunu, where he died of an undiagnosed ailment which Mandela believed to be lung disease. Feeling "cut adrift", he said that he inherited his father's "proud rebelliousness" and "stubborn sense of fairness". Mandela's mother took him to the "Great Place" palace at Mqhekezw
