Darwin spent five weeks on the Galápagos in 1835, but did not publish On the Origin of Species until 24 years later.
The events
- Darwin in the Galápagos1835 · Galápagos Islands, Ecuador. In September and October 1835 HMS Beagle spent about five weeks in the Galápagos, where the young naturalist Charles Darwin collected birds, plants and tortoises. He later noticed that mockingbirds and finches differed markedly from island to island. That puzzle helped lead him to natural selection, set out in 1859 in On the Origin of Species.
- Darwin's On the Origin of Species1859 · London. In November 1859 Charles Darwin published his book on the origin of species by means of natural selection. The theory of evolution explained the diversity of life by natural processes, provoked fierce debate and became the foundation of modern biology.
More amazing facts
- 1809 · 1859 · 1861 Darwin and Lincoln were born on the same day: 12 February 1809.
- 1815 Two months before Waterloo, in April 1815, Indonesia's Tambora erupted — its ash brought the 'Year Without a Summer' to Europe and North America.
- 1825 1825: the first public steam railway opened in England, and in St Petersburg the Decembrists marched onto Senate Square.
- 1844 In May 1844 Morse sent the first telegram from Washington to Baltimore; ten days later the last pair of great auks was killed in Iceland.
- 1850 · 1861 China's Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) overlapped with the American Civil War and cost an estimated 20–30 million lives — many times more.
- 1859 · 1869 Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) and Mendeleev's periodic law (1869) are just ten years apart.