Born in 1813 in Blantyre, Scotland, Livingstone

David Livingstone combined Christian mission with geographical exploration in a career that transformed European knowledge of the African interior. Born in 1813 in Blantyre, Scotland, to a poor cotton-mill family, he worked from age ten while teaching himself Latin, Greek, medicine, and theology. He earned a medical degree at Glasgow and joined the London Missionary Society.

Arriving in southern Africa in 1841, he spent his first years in mission work among the Tswana people, befriending Chief Sechele, whose support became essential to later expeditions. Gradually his passion shifted from conversion to exploration. He broke with the Missionary Society and secured backing from the British government and the Royal Geographical Society.

From 1853 to 1856 he crossed Africa from the Atlantic coast to the Indian Ocean. En route, in 1855, he became the first European to witness the great waterfall on the Zambezi, which he named Victoria Falls. His return to Britain brought a hero's welcome and a bestselling book that ignited public interest in Africa's interior.

His second great expedition along the Zambezi from 1858 exposed him to the horrors of the Arab slave trade. Witnessing slave raids transformed his mission: abolition of the trade became his life's calling. His reports moved British public opinion and were cited in Parliament.

From 1866 he searched for the source of the Nile, wandering Central Africa despite repeated bouts of malaria and dysentery. Years without contact led the New York Herald to send journalist Henry Morton Stanley, who found him at Ujiji in 1871 and spoke the famous greeting. Livingstone died of dysentery on 1 May 1873 near Lake Bangweulu. His African companions dried his body and carried it 1,600 kilometres to the coast for return to Britain. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. His legacy is double-edged: he expanded geographical knowledge but also opened paths that European powers later exploited in the Scramble for Africa.