Profile of the Day: Henry Morton Stanley

On this day in 1871, journalist and explorer Henry Morton Stanley finally located missing explorer Dr. David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika in present-day Tanzania. He famously greeted him with, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”

Image: Henry Morton Stanley / Smithsonian Institution, Flickr

In 1865, Dr. Livingstone had set out to Africa on a two year expedition to find the source of the Nile River. However, six years after his expedition began, little was heard of Livingstone. Finally, in March 1871, the New York Herald sent Stanley on a highly publicized search to find him. He led a team of men into the interior of Africa for months before coming upon the village of Ujiji. It was there that he found Dr. Livingstone. Despite the rescue and Stanley’s urgings, Livingstone chose not to return to home, but to finish his original mission. He died over a year later in Zambia.

Fun fact: Before Stanley began his career in journalism, he served in both the Confederate and the Union Armies during the American Civil War.  

View Henry Morton Stanley’s Geni Profile