John Hanning Speke

Captain John Hanning Speke was an English explorer and military officer who made three exploratory expeditions to Africa. He is most associated with the search for the source of the Nile and was the first European to reach Lake Victoria. Speke is also known for propounding the Hamitic hypothesis in 1863, in which he supposed that the Tutsi ethnic group were descendants of the biblical figure Ham, and had lighter skin and more Hamitic features than the Bantu Hutu over whom they ruled.

4 May 1827

Born on the same birth day (4 May): Al Dexter • Bartolomeo Cristofori • Carlos Monsiváis • Colin Bass • Eric Djemba-Djemba • Erin Andrews • Eugenie Clark • Francis Spellman • Françoise Marie de Bourbon • John Barnard • Nick Joaquin • Radja Nainggolan • Richard Proenneke • Victor Oladipo • Walter Walsh

Born in the same month (May 1827): Hermann Raster • Jules Breton • Kusumoto Ine • Paul-Armand Challemel-Lacour • Pierre Cuypers • Samuel F. Miller (U.S. politician) • William P. Sprague