Facts About Charles Darwin
- Darwin was a prolific letter writer and sent around 14,500 during his lifetime.
- Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist who showed that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.
- Charles Darwin shares a birthday with 16th US President, Abraham Lincoln (was born on February 12th 1809 ).
- In 1825, Darwin’s father sent him to Edinburgh University to study medicine. He wasn’t cut out to be a doctor: he hated the sight of blood.
- Darwin’s mother died when he was eight years old.
- Today there are more than 120 species (and 9 genera) named after Darwin.
- Unlike most scientists, Darwin never had a lab.
- Darwin married his cousin, Emma Wedgwood, and she was a devout Christian. They had a happy and successful marriage and yielded 10 children.
- For Darwin’s 25th birthday on February 12, 1834, Captain FitzRoy named a mountain after him.
