Charles Darwin's Biography

Charles Darwin, as most know, is famous for his theory of evolution. What most don’t know is of his personal life, and how he came to predict his theory of evolution and natural selection..
Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shrophshire in 1809 to a wealthy British physician Robert Darwin and his wife Susannah Darwin. He was the fifth out of six children, and attended the Unitarian Chapel every Sunday. In 1818 Charles started at the nearby Shrewsbury School as a boarder until 1825. After graduating Charles spent his summer helping his father treat the sick as an apprentice doctor before going into the University of Edinburgh Medical School with his brother Eramus. Mr. Darwin studied medicine in hopes of becoming a physician. However, this did not work out well because Mr. Darwin did not like blood, suffering, and overall did not find medicine that interesting. Because of this his father suggested Charles study for the church instead, and enrolled him at Christ’s College. After studying there, Darwin signed up to attend the University of Cambridge on January 26, 1828 where he met his love of the natural world. Darwin was never a model student, but studied the natural world with a mighty passion. He ended up getting his name in the British Entomology by Stephens. A friendship with a botany professor, John Henslow, awakened Charles Darwin’s love for the natural world even more, and after Darwin graduated on April 26th, 1831, Henslow invited him to travel on the HMS Beagle as a naturalist. Darwin would be under the Commander Robert Fitzroy and travel around the world performing various scientific studies. Charles was weary of accepting because his father thought of it a waste of time, but went along on it anyways. After the trip around the world, Darwin came back and fell in love with his cousin Emma Wedgewood, and married her in 1839. They had ten children together, but three of them died under the age of 12. Whenever an illness would come upon the children he would blame himself for marrying his cousin, because he believed that that made weak children. Mr. Charles Darwin passed away in 1882 on April 19, and is buried next to the famous scientist Sir Isaac Newton
It took a lot of hard work for Charles Darwin to discover and publish his theory of evolution, but it was also fun for him because he loves being a naturalist. Charles Darwin is famous for his voyage on the Beagle because that’s where he made most of his jaw-dropping discoveries of the 1800’s. One of Darwin’s discoveries that he found on his voyage on the HMS Beagle was that plants and animals were well suited to whatever environments they inhabited. Similar ecosystems were inhabited by different kinds of animals, but they were all similar in behavior. Another finding from Darwin was fossils that resembled current living organisms, and others unlike any organism he had ever seen. This made him wonder how the living organisms and the look-a-like fossils were related, and if the fossils that resembled nothing maybe had a “relative” as well. Darwin observed many different islands with different climates, and saw that each island had a slightly different species with traits that suited their particular environments. For example, a tortoise on an island where he had to reach for his food had a longer neck, while on another island where food was close to the ground and easily accessible the tortoise had a shorter neck. All of these findings influenced Darwin to produce his theory of evolution by natural selection, of which he formally published in 1859.
In Conclusion, Charles Darwin was an extraordinary man with an extraordinary way of viewing “outside the box”. Because of this man, we now know of our past, and by “our past” I mean before humans, when we were just apes, and whatever came before that. Charles Darwin’s discovery of his evolution theory is the best theory yet. We all thank you, Mr. Charles Darwin, for your discoveries and courage to publish.