Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin was an English naturalist born on 12 February 1809 and died on 19 April 1882. He began training in medicine and then prepared for the church, but his real passion was the study of living things. As a young man he spent almost five years aboard HMS Beagle, a voyage that gave him a vast store of observations on animals, plants, fossils and geology. Back in England he spent the rest of his life working at his country home, writing, experimenting and corresponding widely with other scientists.

Darwin is remembered above all for the theory of evolution by natural selection, which explains how species change over long periods and share common ancestors. His books were written for educated general readers as well as specialists, and they remain unusually readable. His ideas reshaped biology and changed how people think about nature and about human beings themselves.