Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in Transkei, South Africa on July 25,1918 the son of Chief Henry Mandela of the Tembu Tribe. He was educated at University College of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand and qualified in law in 1942. In 1944 he joined the African National Congress where he engaged in resistance against the ruling National Party’s apartheid policies.

In 1962, after advocating for a military wing within the ANC, Mandela was arrested and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment with hard labour. In 1963, Mandela and many other ANC leaders were arrested and brought to stand trial for plotting to violently overthrow the government. On June 12, 1964, eight of the accused, including Mandela, were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Mandela was released from prison on February 18, 1990 and was elected President of the ANC in 1991 at the first national conference of the ANC held inside South Africa after the organization had been officially banned in 1960.

Listen to Mandela’s powerful words as read by award-winning actor Danny Glover, excerpted from the Time Warner Audio release Long Walk to Freedom.

Dr. Jane Goodall received her Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1965. She has been the Scientific Director of the Gombe Stream Research Center since 1967. In 1984, Jane Goodall received the J. Paul Getty Wildlife Conservation Prize for “helping millions of people understand the importance of wildlife conservation to life on this planet.”

Her revolutionary study of chimpanzees in Tanzania’s Gombe preserve forever altered the very definition of “humanity.” Now, in her memoir “Reason for Hope,” Jane Goodall explores her extraordinary life and personal spiritual odyssey, with observations as profound as the knowledge she has brought back from the forest.

It has been a life blessed with faith, resolve, and purpose, though not without its crises. Jane Goodall endured the horrors of the London blitz and World War II, postwar hardships, vicious rumors and “establishment” assaults on the integrity of her work, a terrorist attack and hostage taking in Africa, and her husband’s slow, agonizing death. But throughout, her religious convictions, although tested, have helped her survive-and Jane Goodall’s pursuit of science has enhanced, not eroded, her belief in God.