David Livingstone Biography

David Livingstone was 27 years old when he sailed from Scotland to South Africa as a Christian missionary in 1840. He spent much of the next 33 years traveling in the African interior, eventually becoming as famous for his explorations as for his missionary work. Perhaps his most famous act was reaching and naming Victoria Falls in 1855. In 1871 journalist Henry Stanley tracked the explorer down in Africa, greeting him with the famous words “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” Livingstone died two years later, and after a journey of nearly a year his body was returned to England, where it was buried in Westminster Abbey on 18 April 1874.