Nelson Mandela: Six things you didn’t know

Nelson Mandela was a figure of international renown, and many details of his life and career were public knowledge. But here are six things you may not have known about the late South African leader.

1. He was a boxing fan. In his youth, Nelson Mandela enjoyed boxing and long-distance running. Even during the 27 years he spent in prison, he would exercise every morning.

"I did not enjoy the violence of boxing so much as the science of it. I was intrigued by how one moved one's body to protect oneself, how one used a strategy both to attack and retreat, how one paced oneself over a match," he wrote in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom

2. His original name was not Nelson. Rolihlahla Mandela was nine years old when a teacher at the primary Methodist school where he was studying in Qunu, South Africa, gave him an English name - Nelson - in accordance with the custom to give all school children Christian names.

Rolihlahla is not a common name in South Africa. It is Xhosa, one of the 11 official languages in the country, spoken by about 18% of the population. It literally means "pulling the branch of a tree", but its colloquial meaning is "troublemaker".

3.He was on a US terror watch list until 2008. Prior to that, along with other former ANC leaders, Mr Mandela was only able to visit the US with special permission from the secretary of state, because the ANC had been designated a terrorist organisation by South Africa's former apartheid government.

4. He forgot his glasses when he was released from prison. Mr Mandela's release on 11 February 1990 followed years of political pressure against apartheid. On the day, he was "astounded and a little bit alarmed", he recalled later.

Mr Mandela and his then-wife Winnie were taken to the centre of Cape Town to address a huge and euphoric crowd. But when he pulled out the text of his speech, he realised he had forgotten his glasses and had to borrow Winnie's.

5. He dressed up as a chauffeur to evade police. After going under ground because of his ANC activities, Mr Mandela's ability to evade the securities services earned him the nickname "the black Pimpernel", after the novel The Scarlet Pimpernel, about a hero with a secret identity.

A fake passport in the name of David Motsamayi used by Mr Mandela

6. He had his own law firm, but it took him years to get a law degree. Mr Mandela studied law on and off for 50 years from 1939, failing about half the courses he took.

Nelson Mandela (top row, second left) with fellow law students in 1944

A two-year diploma in law on top of his university degree allowed him to practice, and in August 1952, he and Oliver Tambo established South Africa's first black law firm, Mandela and Tambo, in Johannesburg.

He persevered to finally secure a law degree while in prison in 1989.