November 24

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1859 Darwin publishes The Origin of Species

In 1831 Charles Darwin boarded the survey vessel HMS Beagle for a trip to chart the coast of South America. A well-to-do young layabout with a passion for collecting bugs, Darwin joined the ship as a companion to the captain Robert Fitzroy. In the end the voyage of  the Beagle lasted five years taking him around the world, during which time he amassed a collection of specimens and fossils and a trove of observational data. The fruit of his labour was, first, The Voyage of the Beagle, and a series of books and papers on coral reefs, fossils and barnacles. His growing belief in biological and geological evolution over time did not see book form until he was jarred by similar findings by Alfred Russell Wallace. On this date in 1859 he published his masterwork On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Darwin’s work revolutionized science, and though many of his findings are now considered obsolete or incomplete, Darwin maintains an honoured place in the history of intellectual life.

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