Editing Lake Malawi (section)

==European colonisation==
The [[Portuguese people|Portuguese]] trader Candido José da Costa Cardoso was the first [[Europe]]an to visit the lake in 1846.<ref name=Jeal1973>{{cite book|last=Jeal|first =Tim|title=Livingstone|publisher = G. P. Putnam’s Sons|year=1973|location=New York|isbn =9780399112157|url=https://archive.org/details/livingstone00jeal|url-access=registration}}</ref> [[David Livingstone]] reached the lake in 1859, and named it Lake Nyasa.<ref name=ceonline/> He also referred to it by a pair of nicknames: Lake of Stars and Lake of Storms.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t_wsAwAAQBAJ&q=%22lake+of+stars%22+livingstone&pg=PP170|title=David Livingstone, Africa's Greatest Explorer: The Man, the Missionary and the Myth|last=Bayly|first=Paul|date=2014-03-27|publisher=Fonthill Media|language=en}}</ref> The Lake of Stars nickname came after Livingstone observed lights from the lanterns of the fishermen in Malawi on their boats, that resemble, from a distance, stars in the sky.<ref name="EWG">{{cite book|title=Encyclopedia of World Geography|publisher=Infobase Publishing|year=2005|volume=1|page=576|author=R. W. McColl}}</ref> Later, after experiencing the unpredictable and extremely violent gales that sweep through the area, he also referred to it as the Lake of Storms.<ref name="EWG" />

On 16 August 1914, Lake Malawi was the scene of a brief naval battle during [[World War I]]. The British [[gunboat]] {{SS|Gwendolen}}, commanded by a Captain Rhoades, received orders from the British Empire's high command to "sink, burn, or destroy" the German Empire's only gunboat on the lake, the {{ship||Hermann von Wissmann|steamship|2}}, commanded by Captain Berndt. Rhoades's crew found the ''Hermann von Wissmann'' in a bay near [[Liuli|Sphinxhaven]], in [[German East Africa]]n territorial waters. ''Gwendolen'' disabled the German boat with a single [[cannon]] shot from a range of about {{convert|1800|m|yd}}. This brief conflict was hailed by ''[[The Times]]'' in [[England]] as the British Empire's first naval victory of World War I.<ref>{{cite book |first=Edward |last=Paice |title=Tip and Run: The Untold Tragedy of the Great War in Africa |year=2007 |isbn= 978-0-297-84709-0 |page=not cited|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.clash-of-steel.co.uk/pages/battle_details.php?battle=GUENDOLENV01 |title=The Guendolen v Hermann Von Wissmann |work=Clash of Steel }}</ref>