Who is Charles Darwin?

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist who showed that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection. He published his theory with compelling evidence for evolution in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species

Early life

• Charles Robert Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England on 12 February 1809 at his family home, the Mount.
• Charles darwin was the fifth of six children of wealthy society doctor and financier Robert Darwin, and Susannah Darwin

Education

• In september 1818, he joined his older brother Erasmus attending the nearby Anglican Shrewsbury School as a boarder.
• In 1825, Darwin joined the University of Edinburgh in order to attend medical school. Not very enthusiastic about what he learns, he will leave the institution in 1827.
• In 1828, Darwin entered the University of Cambridge in order to become pastor of the Anglican Church. It was during this course that he will meet Adam Sedgwick and John Stevens Henslow. The two men awaken in him a passion for natural science.  

The Beagle expedition, the theory and the marriage

• On December 27, 1831, Darwin boarded the Beagle expedition for 5 years. The young naturalist traveling for 5 years on board the ship, taking a huge amount of information, observations and specimens. He set foot on many places like the islands of Cape Verde, Brazil, the southern coasts of America, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Tahiti, the Galapagos Islands, New Zealand, Australia, Tasmania, the Mauritius and the Azores. The voyage allowed him to make observations from which later he will develop the theory of evolution of species and natural selection.   
•  In January 1839, Darwin married his cousin  Emma Wedgwood with whom he had ten children. Tired of the turbulent world of London, Darwin decided, three years later to move with his family to a more peaceful place, to Down, Kent where he lived for the rest of his life.
• In January, 1839,  Darwin joined the Royal Society in London, after publishing the diary of his journey, entitled "Voyage of a naturalist around the world." 
• In January, 1839,  Darwin joined the Royal Society in London, after publishing the diary of his journey, entitled "Voyage of a naturalist around the world." 
• In 1858, Pressured by his friends Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker, Darwin argues, by mutual agreement with Alfred Russel Wallace, the theory on the evolution of species in the Linnean Society. Shortly before, Wallace had written a letter from Indonesia, which contained a text entitled "On the tendency of species to stand out indefinitely from the original model. When  Darwin received the mail and discovered that his colleague at the other end of the world, explained exactly or almost his own theory, they joint effortes to work together. 
• On November 24, 1859, Darwin publishes "On the Origin of Species" The British naturalist Charles Darwin publishes "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the struggle for existence in nature" which is recieved a tremendous success. .He explained that the species descended from the same ancestors and have evolved according to the principle of natural selection. Darwin meant by "natural selection" the fact that nature selects the fittest to survive in the environment, to improve the species. This natural process thus determines the evolution of each species, since the characteristics that have promoted survival are constantly transmitted from generation to generation.