History
Although he explored the upper Congo, Livingstone never travelled to this part of the river and the Falls were named in his honour by Henry Morton Stanley.
Since the falls, which start with the Yellala Falls just above Matadi, are a barrier to navigation on the lower part of the river, the Matadi-Kinshasa Railway was constructed to by-pass them.
On an expedition known as 'Africa-Raft', Philippe de Dieuleveult and six members of his party disappeared during a descent of these rapids around Inga on August 6, 1985.
Read more about this topic: Livingstone Falls
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God’s property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Don’t you realize that this is a new empire? Why, folks, there’s never been anything like this since creation. Creation, huh, that took six days, this was done in one. History made in an hour. Why it’s a miracle out of the Old Testament!”
—Howard Estabrook (1884–1978)