Former South African president Nelson Mandela will spend his 95th birthday in hospital on Thursday, as admirers around the world honour his legacy with millions of acts of kindness.
The anti-apartheid icon also marks 15 years since he married his third wife Graca Machel in a secret ceremony, four years after being elected his country's first black president.
In South Africa biker gangs will clean streets, volunteers will paint schools and politicians will spend 67 minutes on worthy projects - a tidal wave of charity to mark Mandela's 67 years of public service.
"Let us return Madiba's sacrifices and contributions through our own efforts to build a better society," said South African President Jacob Zuma using Mandela's clan name.
Mandela has spent the last six weeks in a Pretoria hospital in a critical but stable condition after being admitted for a recurring lung infection.
Breathing with the help of a machine, family and friends have said he is now responding to treatment.
His successor as president, Thabo Mbeki, even suggested he might be discharged from hospital soon.
But on the eve of his 95th birthday and after a series of hospitalisations, that seems optimistic.
"I just hope that although he may not be able to enjoy his 95th birthday, that he will be well enough for his 96th" said friend and fellow anti-apartheid campaigner George Bizos.
Children in schools around South Africa will begin their day by singing Happy Birthday to the former statesman.
Near Pretoria, Zuma will also do his bit.
He will try to channel Mandela's cross-community appeal by delivering government housing to poor whites.
The government will also host a ceremony for the symbolic handing over of Mandela's new high-tech ID card, which will be received by his daughter Zindzi.
The event is laden with meaning in a country where apartheid was enforced by pass books, which black citizens were forced to carry and which limited movement to certain areas at certain times.
Elsewhere global luminaries, pop stars and companies also plan to pledge their support for Mandela Day.
"I will also be giving my 67 minutes to make the world a better place, one small step at a time," British business magnate Richard Branson pledged in a recorded message.
In Manila, 50 abandoned street children will get a television studio tour and see performances by local artists.
On Saturday, Australian city Melbourne will hold a concert featuring local and African artists, while a music festival later this year in Norway will promote equality in schools.
Born July 18 in 1918, Mandela fought against white rule as a young lawyer and was convicted of treason in 1964.
He spent the next 27 years in jail.
But it was through his willingness to forgive his white jailers that Mandela made his indelible mark on history.
After negotiating an end to apartheid, he became South Africa's first black president, drawing a line under centuries of colonial and racist suppression.
He then led reconciliation in the deeply divided country.
Mandela's peace-making spirit has won him worldwide respect.
"Never before in history was one human being so universally acknowledged in his lifetime as the embodiment of magnanimity and reconciliation as Nelson Mandela," said archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu, himself a Nobel peace laureate.
But the sunset of his life has been somewhat eclipsed by bitter infighting among his relatives.
A row over his final resting place has seen three of his children's graves dug up and their remains moved, public brawling and legal action among his children and grandchildren.
In a televised address, his grandson Mandla accused a sibling of impregnating his wife and Mandela's oldest daughter Makawize, of sowing divisions in South Africa's most famous family.
Mandela's oldest granddaughter Ndileka spoke of the pain caused by the rift in an interview published on Wednesday.
"It was something that we did not want to take in the public space but because of who we are it was, it did spill over to the public space," she told the BBC.
"There is no way that I can never forgive but it's just that right now I'm still hurting."
