David Livingstone was a British explorer who charted more of the African interior than any of his European contemporaries. He ventured on three expeditions to Africa, surveying and documenting the geography and local customs across the Kalahari Desert and throughout modern-day Zimbabwe, The Congo, Mozambique, and other African kingdoms. On his third expedition, he was searching for the mouth of the Nile River when he disappeared from contact with England for over four years.
Born into a poor Scottish family, Livingstone was committed to his education. He entered the Missionary Society in London to study medicine, where he received a chance to go to Cape Town to practice as a missionary doctor. In 1845, he met and married fellow missionary Mary Moffat, with whom he would have four children.
Livingstone was steadfast in his mission to bring Christianity to all of Africa, and he became increasingly appalled by the active Arab slave trade. On Livingstone’s subsequent four-year mission to chart the unknown path along the shores of the 2,200-mile Zambezi River, he became the first European to cross the width of southern Africa from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Ιn
Congo in 1871 was in poor health, dire poverty, and strained consciousness, but he held more information on the customs and geography of Africa than any other European at the time. Livingstone chose to stay in Africa and died of dysentery and malaria in modern-day Zambia in the village of Chief Chitambo. His remains were preserved and sent back to England, where they are buried at 15 Westminster Abbey.
Vasco da Gama
(1469–1524)
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Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese sailor, navigator, and the first European to reach India by sailing around Africa. When da Gama was a teenager, Bartolomeu Dias discovered that the Atlantic and Indian Oceans were connected. King Manuel I began to seek out a direct trade route to India and appointed Vasco da Gama's father, Estĕvão da Gama, to discover one. However, Estĕvão died before he could make the journey, and the task was re-assigned to his son.
Vasco de Gama set sail in 1497 with four vessels and about 170 men. Da Gama and his men landed in Mombasa. Upon returning to Portugal, King Manuel took da Gama on as an advisor on Indian trade, customs, and negotiations. Da Gama lived for 20 years on his estate with his family, which included six sons and a daughter. When Manuel died, his son John III ascended the throne. He again dispatched da Gama to India to spread Christianity and gain a new perspective on the people. Da Gama was overtaken by illness in Calicut and died on Christmas Eve in 1524.
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