This Scottish missionary and explorer discovered the Zambesi River in 1851, Victoria Falls in 1855, and later looked for the source of the Nile River. Who was he?

The figure in question is one of the most famous European explorers of Africa from the 19th century. Born in Scotland, David Livingstone was a physician and pioneering Christian missionary who became a celebrated national hero in Victorian Britain. He spent three decades exploring the African interior, confirming his identity as the correct answer by being the first European to document the Zambesi River in 1851 and the spectacular waterfall he named Victoria Falls in 1855. The local Kololo people already knew the falls as "Mosi-oa-Tunya," or "The Smoke that Thunders."

Livingstone's motivations were complex, combining faith, exploration, and a fervent opposition to the slave trade. He believed that opening up the continent to what he called "Christianity and Commerce" would help eradicate the brutal East African slave trade run by Arab and Portuguese traders. His detailed journals and maps dramatically increased Western knowledge of Central Africa's geography, people, and natural resources, though his vision of a commercial utopia never fully materialized.

His final years were consumed by a grueling and ultimately unsuccessful search for the source of the Nile River, during which he fell out of contact for several years. This led to the famous 1871 expedition by journalist Henry Morton Stanley, who located the ailing explorer and greeted him with the now-legendary line, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Livingstone died in Africa two years later, and while his body was returned to be buried in Westminster Abbey, his heart was buried under a Mvula tree in present-day Zambia, at the request of his loyal African companions.