Profile of the Day: Henry Morton Stanley

Henry Morton Stanley

“Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” Those were the first words uttered by journalist and explorer Henry Morton Stanley when he found missing explorer David Livingstone on November 10, 1871 in present-day Tanzania.

Born John Rowlands in Denbigh, Denbighshire, Wales, Stanley immigrated to the United States at 18 and changed his name. During the American Civil War, he served in both the Confederate and Union armies. After the war, he became a journalist.

In 1871, he was commissioned by The New York Herald to lead a highly publicized search Dr. David Livingstone, a well known explorer who had seemingly disappeared in Africa. Years earlier, Livingstone embarked on an African expedition in search of the source of the Nile River. However, six years after his expedition began, no one had heard from him. On November 10, 1871, Stanley finally tracked down a very ill Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika. Despite Stanley’s urgings for Livingstone to return home, the explorer refused and resumed his search for the source of the Nile. Two years later, Livingstone died from malaria in Zambia.

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