A Prolific Family Man
Charles Darwin and his
wife Emma Wedgwood (who was also his first cousin) had 10 children, three of
whom died young. Their eldest child, William, who grew up to become a banker,
was about 3 when this photo was taken in 1842.
Mark Kauffman /
Time Life Pictures / Getty
Study at Down House
Less than 20 miles (32
km) from central London, Down House was Darwin's home and sanctuary for 40
years. He did much of his thinking and experimenting here — the house is now a
museum — and wrote the Origin of Species in this room.
Voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle,
1831-1836
Observations Darwin made in South America, the Galápagos and
the South Pacific while serving as the Beagle's naturalist became the
basis of his theory of evolution. This watercolor depicts the Beagle in
Sydney Harbor on a later voyage.
A Living Laboratory
The Galápagos
archipelago, some 600 miles (1,000 km) west of South America, is so remote that
it has fostered dozens of unique plant and animal species. Darwin visited four
of the islands in 1835.
l. to r.: David
Hosking / Photoresearchers; B. Rosemary Grant / Science / AP
Darwin's Finches
Due to natural selection,
each of the 14 finch species of the Galápagos (known as Darwin's finches) has
evolved characteristics suited ideally to its ecological niche. The large ground
finch, right, has a short, stout beak for crushing seeds, while the cactus finch
uses its narrower bill to probe for insects on prickly pear
plants.
Jeff Greenberg /
Lonely Planet Images / Getty
Tortoises of the Galápagos
Ten subspecies of
these giant reptiles still exist in the Galápagos. Those found in lush habitats
with ample vegetation near the ground tend to have short legs and dome-shaped
shells, while those in drier environs have longer legs and "saddleback" shells
that enable them to stretch up their neck to reach food.
Mark Newman /
Photoresearchers
Ugly Even for an Iguana
Darwin called marine
iguanas "most disgusting clumsy lizards." Indeed, they have a face only a mother
could love. Found only in the Galápagos, marine iguanas feed underwater on
algae; they extract salt from sea water through special glands near the nostrils
then expel it by sneezing, leaving a white residue on their face.
Revolutionary Thinking
Darwin jotted down
many of his ideas and observations in a series of notebooks. He drew this "tree
of life" in July 1837 to illustrate his concept of descent with modification —
how one species could evolve into many — but did not formalize his theory for
another 20 years.
A Surprise Challenger
Another British
naturalist and explorer, Alfred Russel Wallace, devised his own theory of
species diversity based on his travels in the Amazon and Malay archipelago. In
1858, he sent an essay on his work to Darwin, who realized their theories were
essentially identical. Darwin then rushed to set his down on paper and it was
published first.
Meeting of the Minds
On July 1, 1858, a
joint paper by Wallace and Darwin was read to a meeting of the Linnean Society
of London at Burlington House, above. It was the first time their theories had
been aired in public, but few of the attendees realized the momentousness of the
occasion.
Masterwork
Darwin's On the Origin of
Species by Means of Natural Selection was published on Nov. 24, 1859, and
instantly became a best seller. Perhaps its most famous passage: "From so simple
a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are
being, evolved."
The Gallery
Collection / Corbis
Man's Place in Nature
This caricature
appeared in the satirical magazine The Hornet in 1871, after Darwin's
book, The Descent of Man, was published. In it, Darwin showed that
humans, like all other species, are "descended from some lower
form."
Farewell
Darwin, a chronically ill man — his
condition was exacerbated by overwork and stress — died on April 19, 1882.
Thousands of people attended his state funeral in London's Westminster Abbey a
week later. Wallace was one of his pallbearers.
The Scopes Trial, 1925
This dramatic,
landmark case, which would spawn a play, a film and TV movies, challenged a
Tennessee law banning the teaching in state-funded schools of any theory denying
the Biblical view of man's creation. Defendant John Scopes, second from left,
intentionally violated the law by teaching evolution in his high-school science
class, for which he was found guilty and fined $100.
Modern Memorial
Britain's Royal Mint will
issue on Feb. 11 a £2 coin to commemorate the anniversaries of Darwin's birth
and the publication of his seminal work. one side of the coin features profiles
of Darwin and a chimpanzee. The edge is inscribed on the Origin of Species
1859."
