Today the 19th of March 2013 is the 200th Anniversary of the famous explorer David Livingstone’s Birthday and we wanted to mark the day as remembrance for this remarkable man. He was an unassuming Scottish doctor who became a world famous explorer discovering previously unexplored parts of eastern and southern Africa. He was also a missionary spreading Christianity across Africa and he led much of the campaign against the abhorrent slave trade. Livingstone was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London and was made a Fellow of the society, with which he had a strong association for the rest of his life. He was also at the forefront of the wave of European explorers that led eventually to the European colonisation of much of Africa. His motto to be found on his statue by the Falls was in fact “Christianity, Commerce and Civilisation”.
He travelled widely throughout sub-Saharan Africa and was the first European to cross Africa from its west coast in Angola to the east cost in Mozambique. He crossed the infamous Kalahari Desert in Botswana which in those days was an epic undertaking. He later started exploring in East Africa, first in Zanzibar then covering much of Kenya and Tanzania in his mission to find the source of the Nile (which sadly eluded him and many others). He opened up much of the continent to Christianity and other missions as well as setting up the first trade routes which would go on to become vitally important to the area. He made significant contributions by diligently mapping the areas he had been too. He was also instrumental in helping the fight against the horrendous slave trade which disappeared from East and Southern Africa a long time before West Africa finally ended the trade. After witnessing a massacre by slave traders he gave up his quest for the Nile and told newspapers that his fight against the slave trade was by far the most important quest in his life.
He was also the first European ever to witness the mighty Victoria Falls in 1855 and it was he who named them after Queen Victoria. He is famously said to have been so entranced with the beauty of the Falls that he is often quoted as having said of the views: “Scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.” The Victoria Falls which form the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe are the place most closely associated with David Livingstone and there is a large bronze statue of him found close to the Falls in Zimbabwe. The town of Livingstone on the Zambian side of the Falls still bears his name to this day. In fact the town of Livingstone will be running festivals and celebrations all year to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of their namesake. David Livingstone died in Zambia from malaria in 1873 but his loyal followers carried his body for thousands of miles before it was eventually buried in Westminster Abbey.
