Today in History-British Explorer Sir Samuel Baker with his wife Flóra von Sass arrived in Kyangwali Subcounty in the present-day Kikuube District

On this day in 1864, a British Explorer Sir Samuel Baker with his wife Flóra von Sass arrived in Kyangwali Subcounty in the present-day Kikuube District.

They stood on top of the Albertine rift valley at a site known as Kituuti and they viewed Lake Mwitanzige. They claimed to be the first Europeans to visit the Lake which prompted them to claim to have discovered it. Baker renamed it after the recently deceased Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria.

Baker was a British explorer, officer, engineer and writer who made expeditions in Africa. He traveled along with his wife Lady Florence who was saved from a slave market in central Europe.

Lake Albert is shared between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The Lake is Africa’s seventh-largest lake, as well as the second-biggest of Uganda’s Great Lakes.

Before the colonial era, Lake Albert was previously known as “Mwitanzige” (locusts’ killer). This was because of the ancient occurrence whereby locusts, locally called “enzige” perished in the lake as they tried to cross it.

In the 20th century, Zairian President Mobutu Sese Seko temporarily named the lake after himself.

European colonialists operated shipping on the lake. The British planned shipping on Lake Albert as part of a network of railway, river steamer, and Lake Steamer services linking British interests in Egypt, east Africa and southern Africa.

Compiled by Owek. Francis Mugerwa, BKK’s Communications Manager.