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The Life of Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin was born on February 12th, 1809 to Robert Waring Darwin and Susannah Wedgwood. Both of his parents coming from very educated families as well as published authors. His mother died when he was eight years old and was looked after by his three older sisters. He looked up to his father who taught him a lot about human psychology. Charles married his first cousin Emma Wedgwood and would have ten children together. At seventy-three years old Charles passed away from heart issues. -
Edinburgh University
At just 16 years old, Charles's father sent him to the University of Edinburgh to study medicine. He spent little attention on medicine as he was very uninterested in it and more educated himself about the Earth. He learned the new classification of plants and how to identify different rocks. -
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The Voyage of the HMS Beagle
Charles Darwin sailed on the HMS Beagle from 1831-1836 sailing all over the world at just 22 years old. Of the 5 years on the voyage, he only spent a total of 18 months actually on the ship. He spent his time ashore studying what nature had to offer, examining the different wildlife from each region and comparing them. At one point he even stumbled into a rebellion and helped fight! He ended his voyage with a 770-page diary, 1750 pages of notes, and 12 catalogs of skin, bones, and carcasses. -
Galapagos Finches
Charles brought back 13 different species of Finches from the Galapagos Islands which would later help him in his theory. https://www.britannica.com/video/187692/Charles-Darwin-Galapagos-finches-woodpecker-finch-birds -
The Theory of Natural Selection
Throughout his entire life, Charles was working on a theory. His theory was Natural Selection, which many opposed the idea as there was little proof at all, but that's just what Charles had. He had been studying it at home ever since he returned from his voyage. In April of 1856, he began writing a three-volume book that contained over 250 thousand words and later created an abstract of the book to be more accessible. The book did have back-lash but would eventually be accepted.
