Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin was an English naturalist and writer best known for developing and popularizing his theory of evolution. He remains one of the most renowned scientists of all time, and his landmark book The Origin of Species (first published in 1859) remains influential. Darwin grew up in a wealthy English family and read widely, although he disappointed his father by failing to follow in his footsteps and become a doctor. While Darwin had long been interested in nature, the turning point in his life came when he joined the crew of the H.M.S. Beagle on a voyage that included a stop at the Galapagos Islands. His observations on that voyage—most notably of the different types of finches on the islands—helped spur his theories about natural selection and evolution that he would develop over the course of his career, most notably in The Origin of Species, but also in his later books like The Descent of Man (1871) and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). By the time Darwin died in 1882, he was already regarded as a revolutionary scientist, and he continues to be studied, debated, and celebrated into the present.