David Stevens

Charles Darwin › Timeline

Charles Darwin, 1809–1958

The life, the books, and the afterlife. One line per event, from the documents.

  1. 1809Born at Shrewsbury, the son of a wealthy doctor.
  2. 1825Edinburgh, to study medicine. Runs from two operations, and learns taxidermy from John Edmonstone, a freed slave.
  3. 1828Cambridge, reading for the Church. Paley's argument from design seems to him as sound as Euclid.
  4. 183127 December: sails from Devonport on HMS Beagle.
  5. 1835The Galapagos. The vice-governor tells him the tortoises differ by island; he mixes up his specimens.
  6. 18362 October: the Beagle reaches Falmouth.
  7. 1837John Gould sorts the bird collections. July: the first notebook on the transmutation of species; the tree, and I think.
  8. 183828 September: reads Malthus, and sees the mechanism. Six weeks later, proposes to Emma Wedgwood.
  9. 183929 January: marries Emma. Publishes a theory of the parallel roads of Glen Roy, later proved wrong.
  10. 1842Thirty-five pages in pencil. September: moves to Down House, Kent, for the rest of his life.
  11. 1844A 230-page essay on the theory. 5 July: the letter asking Emma to publish it if he dies.
  12. 1846Begins eight years on barnacles.
  13. 1855Pigeons, and seeds soaked in brine in the cellar.
  14. 185818 June: Wallace's essay arrives from Ternate. 1 July: both read at the Linnean Society. 28 June: his infant son dies.
  15. 185924 November: On the Origin of Species, 1,250 copies, fifteen shillings. The word evolution is not in it.
  16. 1860The Oxford meeting. No transcript survives.
  17. 1867Fleeming Jenkin's review, which his son judged the most valuable criticism Darwin ever received.
  18. 1869Fifth edition: Spencer's survival of the fittest goes in, at Wallace's urging.
  19. 1871February: The Descent of Man.
  20. 1872Sixth edition. Evolution appears for the first time.
  21. 1881The earthworm book outsells the Origin, relative to its first years.
  22. 188219 April: dies at Down House. 26 April: buried in Westminster Abbey.
  23. 1887His son publishes the autobiography, with nearly six thousand words removed.
  24. 1930sGenetics and selection are joined, and natural selection becomes the foundation of biology.
  25. 1958His granddaughter restores the cuts to the autobiography.

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