Charles Darwin (1809–1882) was an English naturalist and biologist whose groundbreaking work fundamentally transformed our understanding of life on Earth. Born in Shrewsbury, England, he studied at the University of Edinburgh and later Cambridge before embarking on a five-year voyage aboard HMS Beagle, during which he collected specimens and made observations across South America, the Galápagos Islands, and beyond. These experiences laid the foundation for his theory of evolution by natural selection, which he published in his landmark 1859 work On the Origin of Species. Darwin proposed that species change over time through the gradual accumulation of small variations that confer survival advantages, a mechanism he called natural selection. Though controversial in his day for challenging prevailing religious accounts of creation, his ideas became the unifying framework of modern biology and earned him recognition as one of the most influential scientists in history. He spent much of his later life at Down House in Kent, continuing to research and publish on topics ranging from earthworms to human emotion, before his death at age 73.
Height: ~7"
