David Livingstone

Livingstone left the mills of Scotland for medical training and missionary work with the London Missionary Society, marrying into the Moffat missionary dynasty. His exploration of central Africa's watershed became the final act of Europe's classic age of geographical discovery, but he framed it instrumentally: find the Nile's source, gain influence, kill the Arab–Swahili slave trade. He vanished for years. When he died in Africa on 1 May 1873, Britain turned him into a posthumous national hero — working-class boy made good, martyr to the cause — and his death launched a wave of Christian missi…