Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882) He was born on the 12th of February in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England.
His father Robert Waring was a physician. Darwin lost his mother, Susannah Wedgwood, at the age of eight and it was his sister who grew him up.
He led classical studies at Shrewsbury, then went to Edimburgh to study Medecine at the local university. As he was terribly shocked by the sight of surgery performed without anesthesia, he eventually went to Christ's College at Cambridge University to study Theology and become a clergyman of the Church of England.
After getting his degree, Darwin accepted an invitation to serve as an unpaid naturalist on H.M.S. Beagle, which left for a five-years scientific expedition to the Pacific coasts of South America on the 31st December, 1831.
Under captain Robert Fitzroy, Darwin visited Tenerife, Cabo Verde Islands, Brazil, Montevideo, Tierra del Fuego, Buenos Aires, Valparaiso and Chile, Galapagos, Tahiti, New Zealand and Tasmania.
Darwin's research resulting from this voyage provided the basis for his famous book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, published in 1859, where the theory of evolution is brilliantly outlined, by writing down the contemporary beliefs about the creation of life on earth.
Throughout his life, Darwin continued to publish his works on biology: The Fertilisation of Orchids (1862), The Variation of Plants and Animals under Domestication (1867), The Descent of Man (1867).
Later works include: The Expression of the Emotions of Man and Animals (1873), Insectivorous Plants (1875), Climbing Plants (1875), The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom (1876), Different Forms of Flowers in Plants of the same Species (1877), The Power of Movement in Plants (1880), e The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the action of Worms (1881).
He became secretary of the Geological Society (1838-41) and later got married with his cousin Emma Wedgwood in 1839 and lived with her and their eight children at the village of Downe, 15 miles far from London.
He died after a long illness on the 19th of April 1882 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

links:  - A lecture on Charles Darwin