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Born.
French naturalist, born on the 1st of August 1744, at Bazantin, a village of Picardy. -
Period: to
Timespan of Jean Baptiste Lamarck
His entire life -
Entered Jesuit Seminary.
The young Lamarck entered the Jesuit seminary at Amiens around 1756. -
Entered the army.
But not long after his father's death, Lamarck rode off to join the French army campaigning in Germany in the summer of 1761 -
Peace of the war.
- After peace was declared in 1763, Lamarck spent five years on garrison duty in the south of France, until an accidental injury forced him to leave the army.
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Flore Francaise published,
- In 1778 his book on the plants of France, Flore Française, was published to great acclaim, in part thanks to the support of Buffon (Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon)
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Elected to Academy of Sciences.
- With Buffon’s support, Lamarck was elected to the Academy of Sciences in 1779.
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Published three large Botanic volumes.
- Between 1783 and 1792 Lamarck published three large botanical volumes for the Encyclopédie méthodique (“Methodical Encyclopaedia”), a massive publishing enterprise begun by French publisher Charles-Joseph Panckoucke in the late 18th century.
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Recieved a Ttitle
- Shortly after Buffon’s death in 1788, his successor, Flahault de la Billarderie, created a salaried position for Lamarck with the title of “botanist of the King and keeper of the King’s herbaria.”
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Promoting other fields
- In the 1790s he began promoting the broad theories of physics, chemistry, and meteorology that he had been nurturing for almost two decades.
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Cofounded journal of natural history.
n 1792 he cofounded and coedited a short-lived journal of natural history, the Journal d’histoire naturelle. -
Jardin du Roi chaanged to National Museum.
- Lamarck’s career changed dramatically in 1793 when the former Jardin du Roi was transformed into the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (“National Museum of Natural History”).
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Introduced Biology.
By 1802 Lamarck had also introduced the term biology. -
Published Hydrogeologie
- He also began thinking about Earth’s geologic history and developed notions that he would eventually publish under the title of Hydrogéologie (1802)
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Published a series of books.
- Lamarck published a series of books on invertebrate zoology and paleontology. Of these, Philosophie zoologique, published in 1809, most clearly states Lamarck's theories of evolution.
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Starts loosing eyesight.
- Most of Lamarck's life was a constant struggle against poverty; to make matters worse, he began to lose his sight around 1818, and spent his last years completely blind.
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Published second volume of a book.
- The first volume of Histoire naturelle des Animaux sans vertèbres was published in 1815, the second in 1822.
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Died
- When he died, on December 28, 1829, he received a poor man's funeral (although his colleague Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire gave one of the orations) and was buried in a rented grave; after five years his body was removed, and no one now knows where his remains are.