Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin FRS FRGS FLS FZS JP
Darwin, c. 1854, when he was preparing On the Origin of Species[1]
Born	Charles Robert Darwin (1809-02-12)12 February 1809 Shrewsbury, England
Died	19 April 1882(1882-04-19) (aged 73) Down, Kent, England
Resting place	Westminster Abbey
Alma mater	University of Edinburgh Christ's College, Cambridge (BA, 1831; MA, 1836)[2]
Known for	The Voyage of the Beagle On the Origin of Species The Descent of Man
Spouse	Emma Wedgwood ​ (m. 1839)​
Children	10, including William, Henrietta, George, Francis, Leonard and Horace
Awards	Royal Medal (1853)[3] Wollaston Medal (1859)[3] Copley Medal (1864)[3] Baly Medal (1879)[3] Pour le Mérite, Prussia (1867)[3] Doctor of Laws (Honorary), Cambridge (1877)[4]
Scientific career
Fields	Natural history, geology
Institutions	Geological Society of London
Academic advisors	John Stevens Henslow Adam Sedgwick
Author abbrev. (botany)	Darwin
Author abbrev. (zoology)	Darwin
Signature

Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist.^[5] He is famous for his work on the theory of evolution. Darwin's book On the Origin of Species was published in 1859. In this book, he put forward much evidence that evolution had occurred. He also proposed natural selection as the way evolution had taken place.

Darwin did not know about genetics: he never read the work of Gregor Mendel.^[6] Nevertheless, Darwin's explanation of evolution was fundamentally correct. In contrast to Lamarck, Darwin's idea was that the giraffe's neck became longer because those with longer necks survived better.^[7]p177/9 These survivors passed their genes on, and in time the whole species got longer necks.

1. ↑ Freeman 2007, p. 76. sfn error: no target: CITEREFFreeman2007 (help)
2. ↑ "Charles Darwin's personal finances revealed in new find". 22 March 2009. Archived from the original on 19 October 2017 – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4} Freeman 2007, p. 106 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFFreeman2007 (help).
4. ↑ "Darwin Endless Forms » Darwin in Cambridge". Archived from the original on 23 March 2017.
5. ↑ "Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882)". BBC. Retrieved 2011-11-03.
6. ↑ The work of Mendel was not rediscovered until the early 20th century
7. ↑ Darwin, Charles 1884. The origin of species. 6th ed, Murray, London.