Darwin, Charles Robert

1809 - Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England on the 12th of February.

1817 - Attended the school runned by the preachers of the Unitarian Chapel.

1818 - At the age of nine, he entered Anglican Shrewsbury School.

1825 - He was an apprentice to his father, a doctor. He attended University of Edinburgh to study medicine and learned taxidermy from John Edmonstone, a freed black slave who told him exciting tales of the South American rainforest.

1827 - His father enrolled him in a Bachelor of Arts course at Christ's College, University of Cambridge to qualify as a clergyman but he preferred riding and shooting to studying. He met Reverend John Stevens Henslow, professor of botany.

1831-1836 - Accompanied H. M. S. Beagle as naturalist on voyage throughout much of Southern Hemisphere.

1837 - Elected to the Council of the Geographical Society on the 7th of February.

1838 - He went to Scotland to have a break and did some research works.

1839 - Elected as Fellow of the Royal Society on the 24th of January.

       - Married Emma Wedgwood at Maer in an Anglican ceremony on the 29th of January.

1849 - Went to Malvern to improve his chronic ill health.

1853 - Earned the Royal Society's Royal Medal and it made his reputation as a biologist.

1854 - He continued his work on his theory of species.

1859 - Wrote his book entitled The Origin of Species.

1871 - He wrote his book entitled The Descent of Man.

1882 - He died on the 9th of April.

• "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one that is most adaptable to change."
• "The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference."
• "A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life."
• "The assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for His existence. But this is a rash argument, as we should thus be compelled to believe in the existence of cruel and malignant spirits, only a little more powerful than man; for the belief in them is far more general than in a beneficent Diety."
• "If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin."