Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa’s first democratic President

After South Africa's first national democratic elections in April 1994, Nelson Mandela was sworn in as South Africa's first democratic President at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on 10 May 1994.. He replaced the outgoing National Party leader F.W. de Klerk as President. Mandela spent the first 18 of his 27 years in jail at the Robben Island Prison. In June 1990 he retired from politics at the age of 80.