Hello, and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on February 11th. Thirty-one years ago today, former South African president, Nobel Prize winner, and revered activist Nelson Mandela, the leader of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, was released after 27 years in prison. Mandela spent 18 of those years at the notoriously brutal Robben Island, where he was forced to do hard labor and could receive only one visitor and two letters each year.

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