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Born at The Mount, Shrewsbury, child number five to Robert Waring Darwin and Susannah Wedgwood.
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Darwin's mother dies, leaving his sister to take on her responsiblities as a mother to him. He also starts his first year at Utalitarian day school.
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Attends as a boarder at Shrewsbury School calling it "narrow and classical" to which he is unhappy.
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After being forced out of the school for being classified as "unsuccessful," he spends his summer accompanying his father on his rounds as a physician and is then sent with his brother to Edinburg University to study medicine as his father did.
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Darwin joins the Plinian Society, a club at Edinburg University founded in 1823 for those interested in natural history. It's here he encountered radical philosophical materialism for the first time and meets his most influential mentor, Robert Grant.
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Darwin leaves university without a degree because of his distaste for medicine and queasiness at the sight of blood.
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Darwin, following urgings from his father so as not to become "idle", enters Christ's College, Cambridge.
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Takes his BA exam and is ranked 10th out of 178.
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Darwin embarks sail on the Beagled. He accepted a seat as a naturalist aboard the ship, which embarked on a five-year survey journey around the world. A once in a lifetime experience for an aspiring naturalist and the jumpstart to everything.
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During his five-year expedition, Darwin's time in the Galapagos Islands would prove crucial to his studies. This area had a profound impact on his understanding of natural history and became a focal point for his ideas on evolution.
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Darwin first meets geologist, Lyell.
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Darwin moves from Cambridge to 36, Great Marlborough Street, London.
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Darwin is elected to the Athenaeum.
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He is then elected then to the Council of the Royal Geographical Society.
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Then is elected to the Royal Society.
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Darwin marries his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood.
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The Beagle journal is published as Journals and Remarks, volume three of Darwin's Narrative of the Voyage.
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The couple's first child, William Erasmus is born.
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Structure and distribution of Coral Reefs is published.
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Darwin produces a 35 page draft of evolutionary theory.
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Volcanic Islands is written.
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Darwin finishes a 231 page manuscript.
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Darwin finishes his last book describing the Beagle voyages: Geological Observations on South America.
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After the death of his eldest daughter, the first of two books on stalked barnacles by Darwin is published. This changes the entire subclass of fossil and living organisms Cirripedia.
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The Royal Society award Darwin their Royal Medal for his work on barnacles.
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Darwin is elected to the Royal Society's Philosophical Club, and to the Linnean Society.
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Experiments are conducted that prove that seeds, plants and animals could reach oceanic islands, where they might produce new species in geographic isolation.
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After a weekend party with a group of fellow naturalists where they discussed the ideas of species origins, Darwin begins writing for publication, supported by Lyell, who had previously feared that others might publish the same work before him.
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Extracts from Darwin's work and a paper by Wallace who had a similar idea and work, are presented at the Linnean Society. Later published as "On the tendency of species to form varieties" in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society (Zoology) Darwin writes a book, stripped of academic references and aimed at the reading public, called On the Origin of Species.
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Darwin is awarded the Copley medal of the Royal Society (after being nominated three years running). Origin of Species was omitted from the award.
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Darwinism begins to dominate the views of the British Association.
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Publication of The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication.
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The Descent of Man is published, the Origin is extensively re-written to answer arguments. This final edition uses the word 'evolution' for the first time.
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Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals completes a cycle of evolutionary writins.
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Cambridge bestows Darwin with an honorary doctorate of law.
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Following a heart attack and seizures on Christmas Day, Darwin dies and is burried at Westminster Abbey.