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Birthday
Charles Darwin was born on February 12, 1809, in Shrewsbury, England. His mother's name was Susannah Wedgwood and Fathers name was Robert Waring Darwin. His father was a successful doctor and his mother was the daughter of a famous manufacturer of china. -
Education
Darwin's father, Robert, would at first steer him into a career in medicine, then he would steer him towards the ministry. Darwin, on the other hand, wanted to become a naturalist. He studied at a university in Edinburgh, Scotland and then finished his studies at Cambridge University in England. -
Seeing the world
Charles was offered an amazing opportunity to set sail on a voyage by Captain of the Beagle. He set sail for a five-year voyage exploring the coast of South America. This voyage allowed Darwin to observe nature in different environments. These travels would ultimately be the reason Darwin thought about his theories, this is also how he would be able to explain his thoeries becasue he saw it first hand. -
1838- Darwin First account of evolution
After coming home from his travels, Darwin began writing about his experiences around the world, it was during these writings that a powerful idea emerged.
He thought about how he saw transmutation happen. Animals survived longer when they were better suited for that environment and they were able to reproduce. He called this theory "Natural Selection", which is something we know about today. He struggled a bit with the idea because of his faith and kept it a secret until he had more evidence. -
1859- First publication
Finally this year Darwin publishes his new theory of evolution, which was one of the most important books ever written. A lot of people were shocked by his book, one point implied that humans were descended from apes. The publication was called " The Origin of Species". This book introduced his theory that populations evolve over generations through natural selection, it explained how the diversity of life was through common descent. This a huge change in the way scientist would see things. -
1869- Survival of the fittest
Darwin's "Origin of Species" became a best seller all over the world and had multiple editions. In his 5th edition he introduced something called 'Survival of the fittest', he had borrowed that phrase from Herbert Spencer. Darwin's theory was that unlike natural selection, this theory shows how animals adapted to their environment. A great example was that of the Galapagos finches that Darwin has demonstrated. -
1871- publication of 'The descent of man'
This year was a decade after he published his first book called 'Origin of Species'. Despite the backlash, he might get from publishing his theory of man he went ahead and published 'The Descent of Man', which explained more in-depth about human evolution and how humans are descended from apes. It explained something called sexual selection which was how a female's choice in a competing male would choose the racial characteristics of the offspring. Everyone is unique and now we could see why. -
published 'The Expression of Emotions of man and animals'
Charles Darwin published this book in 1872, this is Darwin 3rd Major work in his theory of evolution. This book discussed the similarity in the characteristics in humans and animals, for example, things like animals and humans raise their eyebrows when scared or purse their lips or even blushing. This showed a major breakthrough, showing we all have emotions and how the expressions we have that come with those emotions are similar. -
'Insectivorous plants' was publsihed
This book was published in July of 1875. In this book Charles Darwin explored more of his theory of natural selection, mainly focused on carnivorous plants with even more focus on how these plants adapt and learn how to live in difficult conditions. He wrote about his experiments with all types of different Carnivorous plants and looking into how exactly they feed. Of course this changed what we know about certain plants, like the venus fly trap. -
Death of Darwin
in April of 1882, Charles Darwin passes away at the age of 73. he suffered his whole life with problems with his stomach and heart, and no one knew the reason why he was having these problems. Unfortunatly, on this day he had a fatal heart attack. -
Check out this video
This video explains one of Darwins most influential theories, the theory of evolution. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOk_0mUT_JU -
Work Cited continued
Charles, Darwin, first addition(1859), The Origin of Species, web,https://gutenberg.org/files/1228/1228-h/1228-h.htm, 20 May 2020
Charles, Darwin,(1871) The Descent of Man, web.,http://bibliotecadigital.puc-campinas.edu.br/services/e-books/Charles%20Darwin-1.pdf, 20 May 2020
Charles, Darwin,(1872), The Expressions of Emotions of Man and Animals, web. http://gruberpeplab.com/teaching/psych131_summer2013/documents/Lecture3_Darwin1872_EmotionalExpressioninManandAnimals -
work cited
Cynthia Stokes Brown, Charles Darwin - A Biography,https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/big-history-project/life/other-materials5/a/charles-darwin-a-biography, Khan Academy, (n.d.), web, 19 May 2020
John van Wyhe, ed. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (http://darwin-online.org.uk/),19 May 2020
John Van Wyhe, 2002. The Major Works of Charles Darwin, web, http://darwin-online.org.uk/timeline.html, 19 May 2020
