Nov. 10, 1871-UJIJI, ZANZIBAR– Seven years after Scottish doctor and missionary David Livingstone’s disappearance in the heart of Africa, a search party led by journalist Henry Stanley found him. Stanley and his party had been searching for Livingstone for eight months. The doctor was living in the village Ujiji, on Lake Tanganyika.
When Stanley saw him for the first time, he tried to conceal his excitement and said, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”
Livingstone’s (1813-1873) 1840 exploration of central Africa had propelled him to international fame. Disappearing during his second expedition into Africa in 1864 while searching for the source of the Nile River, his whereabouts began to be a concern around the world.
In 1864, Stanley (1841-1904) began as a freelance journalist and worked his way up to be a special correspondent for the New York Herald in 1867, which financed Stanley’s 2,000-man expedition in search of Livingstone in 1871. Livingstone died May 1, 1873, in Chitambo, never having found the source of the Nile. Stanley continued Livingstone’s mission, finally finishing it in 1889. In 1895, he was knighted Sir Henry Morton Stanley.