Biology Timeline

By stqrlights
  • Period: to

    Jean-Baptiste Lamarck‘s lifespan.

    Lamark advocated a theory of evolution which included the idea that traits could be acquired and then passed along to offspring.

  • Charles Darwin graduated from college with a B.A degree

  • Employed as ship's naturalist, Charles Darwin left England aboard The Beagle.

  • Period: to

    Ernst Haeckel’s lifespan.

    Haeckel was an influential zoologist whose work on evolution served to inspire some of the racist theories of the Nazis.

  • Charles Darwin reaches the Galapagos Islands on the Beagle

  • Charles Darwin began to write his book “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection”

  • Darwin publishes his book

    All copies were sold out on the day it released!

  • Thomas Henry Huxley and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce of the Church of England engaged in their famous debate on Darwin's theory of evolution.

  • Tennessee Governor Austin Peay signed into law a prohibition against the teaching of evolution in public schools.

    Later that year John Scopes would violate the law, leading to the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial.

  • The infamous Scopes Monkey Trial began in Dayton, Tennessee.

  • Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical Humani Generis, condemning ideologies which threatened Roman Catholic faith but allowing that evolution did not necessarily conflict with Christianity.

  • Decided: Epperson v. Arkansas The Supreme Court found that Arkansas' law prohibiting the teaching of evolution was unconstitutional because the motivation was based on a literal reading of Genesis, not science.

  • Decided: McClean v. Arkansas A federal judge found that Arkansas' "balanced treatment" law mandating equal treatment of creation science with evolution was unconstitutional.

  • Decided: Edwards v. Aguillard In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court invalidated Louisiana's "Creationism Act" because it violated the Establishment Clause.

  • Webster v. New Lenox Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that school boards have the right to prohibit teaching creationism because such lessons would constitute religious advocacy.