Alexander Gordon Laing—explorer
Work
During the 1820's, Alexander Gordon Laing, a Scottish explorer, and Rene Caillie (ruh NAY cah YAY), a Frenchman, separately visited the city of Timbuktu, near the Niger in Mali.
http://www.geometry.net/detail/basic_p/park_mungo_african_explorer.htm...
Alexander Gordon Laing,Travels in the Timannee, Kooranko, and Soolima countries in Western Africa (London, 1825), facing p. 148.
http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/Slavery/detailsKeyword.php?keyword=&...
LAING, ALEXANDER GORDON, whose name is so mournfully connected with the history of African discovery, was born at Edinburgh on the 27th of December, 1793. His father, William Laing, A.M., was the first who opened an academy for classical education in the new town of the Scottish capital; where he laboured for thirty-two years, and was one of the most popular teachers of his day. His maternal grand-father, William Gordon, was also a teacher of very considerable note, and is known in the schools as the author of a system of geography, a treatise on arithmetic, a translation of the first six books of Livy, &c.
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/other/laing_alexander.htm
1825 - Scottish explorer Alexander Gordon Laing became the first European to reach Timbuktu, now in Mali.
http://www.andibradley.com/whatya/aug18.php
1825 Jul 16, Alexander Gordon Laing (32), British Army Major, set off on camel from Tripoli in an attempt to become the 1st European to cross the Sahara Desert and reach the fabled city of Timbuktu (Mali).
http://timelines.ws/countries/LIBYA.HTML
Alexander Gordon Laing becomes the first European to reach Timbuktu - now in Mali. Laing is murdered there less than a month later
http://www.thehistorychannel.co.uk/site/this_day_in_history/this_day_A...
Alexander Gordon Laing (December 27, 1793–September 26, 1826) was a Scottish explorer and the first European to reach Timbuktu. Laing was born at Edinburgh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Gordon_Laing
