Industrial Age · Africa · Exploration
1855
Livingstone Sees Mosi-oa-Tunya
November 17, 1855
David Livingstone, paddling down the Zambezi in a dugout canoe, became the first European to see the falls the Kololo called Mosi-oa-Tunya - 'the smoke that thunders.' He named them for his queen. The spray rose four hundred meters into the air. Livingstone wept. Africa's interior was being drawn onto European maps, one waterfall at a time.