The Saint Of Science

Charles Robert Darwin; born on February 12, 1809, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England was a British naturalist known for his contributions for Theory of Evolution and Bio-diversity.

He studied Medicine at the University of Edinburgh and Biology at Cambridge. He was recommended as a naturalist on HMS Beagle, which was bound on a long scientific survey expedition to South America and the South Seas (1831–36). His zoological and geological discoveries on the voyage resulted in numerous important publications and formed the basis of his theories of evolution. Seeing competition between individuals of a single species, he recognized that within a local population the individual bird, for example, with the sharper beak might have a better chance to survive and reproduce and that if such traits were passed on to new generations, they would be predominant in future populations. He saw this natural selection as the mechanism by which advantageous variations were passed on to later generations and less advantageous traits gradually disappeared. 

Darwin worked on his theory for more than 20 years before publishing it in his famous On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859). The book was immediately in great demand, and Darwin’s intensely controversial theory was accepted quickly in most scientific circles; most opposition came from religious leaders. Though Darwin’s ideas were modified by later developments in genetics and molecular biology, his work remains central to modern evolutionary theory. His many other important works included Variation in Animals and Plants Under Domestication (1868) and The Descent of Man (1871). He died of a Heart Attack on April 19, 1882. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Harriet the Tortoise :-

Harriet; a Tortoise was found in around 1830; was a Galápagos tortoise who had an estimated age of 175 years at the time of her death in Australia. Harriet is the third oldest tortoise ever authenticated, behind Tu'i Malila, who died in 1965 at the age of 188, and Adwaita, who died in 2006 at the age of 255.

She was reportedly collected by Charles Darwin during his 1835 visit to the Galápagos Islands as part of his round-the-world survey expedition, transported to England, and then brought to her final home, Australia, by a retiring captain of the Beagle. However, some doubt was cast on this story by the fact that Darwin had never visited the island that Harriet originally came from.

Harriet died on June 23, 2006 of Heart failure following a short illness

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