From Monkeys to Men

CHARLES DARWIN

Charles Robert Darwin, an English naturalist was born on February 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. He belonged in a wealthy family. He was the son of Robert Waring Darwin, who had one o the largest medical practices outside of London, and the grandson of the physician Erasmus Darwin, the author of Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic Life, and of the artisan-entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood.

He was the one who proposed and provided scientific evidence that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors through the process he called natural selection. He developed his interest in natural history while studying first medicine at Edinburgh University, then theology at Cambridge.

In 1831, he joined a five year expedition on the survey ship, HMS Beagle. He worked on his theory for 20 years. He learned that Alfred Russel Wallace, another naturalist, had developed the same ideas, the two made a joint publication of both of their theories. He published "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection" in the year 1859. After the publication, he continued to write on botany, geology and zoology until his death in 1882.