David Livingstone 

(1813-1873) 

David Livingstone (1813-1873)

David Livingstone was born on March 13, 1813 in Scotland. He became a doctor and a missionary, and devoted much of his life to exploring Africa.

The Livingstones were poor, so at the age of 10 David worked 14 hours a day, studying at night and on weekends.
In 1836 he entered the University of Glasgow to study medicine and theology, working during holidays to support himself.

When he was 27 years old he went to Africa as a Christian missionary in 1841. He decided that the best way to teach Africans about Christ was to move about and see as many people as he could. That is how he became an African explorer.

Before Livingstone, Africa was almost entirely unknown to the outside world.

No one made as many geographical discoveries in Africa as Livingstone.

He travelled on the Zambezi River, and became the first European to see the spectacular Victoria Falls.

He also drew the world's attention to the great evil of the African slave traffic.

In 1866 David Livingstone went on an expedition to discover more of the Nile River. While on this expedition he was lost and no one heard from him. In 1871, a New York reporter, Henry Morton Stanley, led an expedition to find him. When they found him, Stanley said those famous words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume."

On May 1, 1873, his servants found him in his tent kneeling in prayer at the bedside. He was dead. His men buried his heart but embalmed the body and carried it to England, where it was identified by the lion wound in the left shoulder. On April 18, 1874, Livingstone was buried in great honor in London's Westminster Abbey.