Mugabe gestures towards the media in Geneva, Switzerland, at a 1974 conference convened to address the civil war in Rhodesia. After being imprisoned for 10 years in Rhodesia, Mugabe attended the peace talks as a leader of the guerrilla movement ZANU-PF (Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front). Rhodesia was the state that eventually became Zimbabwe.
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Mugabe speaks to the press in Geneva in 1976. The following year he was elected president of ZANU-PF and commander-in-chief of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army.
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Mugabe holds a news conference in Salisbury -- now Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe -- in March 1980. He had just been elected as the first prime minister of Zimbabwe, helping to form the new country after British rule of Rhodesia came to an end.
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From left, NBC News moderator Bill Monroe, Newsday's Les Payne, the Chicago Sun Times' Robert Novak and NBC News' Garrick Utley speak with Mugabe during an episode of "Meet the Press" in 1980.
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Mugabe holds hands with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi at the Organization of African Unity summit in August 1982.
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Mugabe speaks with his first wife, Sally, during an event in Salisbury in 1980. The pair were married until Sally died in 1992. They had one son, who died at age 4.
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Mugabe meets with French President Francois Mitterand in Paris in 1982.
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Mugabe is seen with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in New Delhi in 1983.
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