Little fact-lovers, let me tell you about Charles Robert Darwin.
He was an English geologist, naturalist, and biologist widely famous for his contributions to evolutionary biology😲.
He even proposed that all species of life have descended from a common ancestor is now considered a fundamental concept in science.
So, in this article, let us take a look into the life and achievements of this amazing person.
Mysterious Charles Darwin Facts
Darwin was born on the same day as Lincoln
Hey there, little friends, did you know that Darwin was born on the same day as Lincoln?
Both of them were born on February 12, 1809. However, the settings were quite different!
While the United States’ 16th president was born in a rude log cabin in Kentucky, Darwin was born in a grand Georgian house overlooking the River Severn and Shrewsbury’s medieval market town.
Darwin was the fifth of six children of Robert Darwin 👨, a wealthy society financier and doctor, and Susannah Darwin.
Both of Darwin’s families were largely Unitarian
Both families of Darwin were largely Unitarian, though the Wedgwoods adopted Anglicanism.
Darwin’s father was a freethinker, and hence, he baptized baby Charles in November 1809.
Charles was baptized in the Anglican St. Chad’s Church⛪, Shrewsbury; however, Charles and his siblings attended the local Unitarian Church.
At that time, the eight-year-old Charles already had a liking for natural history and, in 1817, joined the day school.
Darwin dropped out of medical school
Darwin’s dad was a successful doctor who groomed Charles to become a doctor 👨⚕️like him.
So, after spending the summer of the year 1825 as an apprentice in the practice of his father, Charles entered one of the top medical schools in Britain, the University of Edinburgh 🏛️.
However, Darwin was quite bored with lectures, and hence, he left medical school and dashed the dreams of his dad.
Darwin couldn’t stand the sight of blood
Though Darwin attended a well-known university to become a doctor, that didn’t last long.
One of the several reasons behind this was Darwin couldn’t stand the sight of blood🩸.
Unable to face the brutality of the surgery of the 19th century, he chose to study divinity instead. Thus, eventually, he became the pastor of a small church.
At that time, naturalism was a common pursuit of rural clergymen at the time, and religion hence provided a unique segue for Darwin.
Thus, he served as the naturalist on Capt. Robert Fitzroy’s 1831-1836 voyage🚢 to South America on the HMS Beagle.
Darwin was a backgammon buff
Darwin suffered from a mysterious ailment for much of his adult life.
He suffered from symptoms like headaches, blisters, insomnia, and also vomiting. These symptoms often flared up at times of exhaustion or even stress.
He tried to fight these issues by following a strict daily schedule in the later years of his life, which included a lot of time researching and reading📚 at home!
It even included two games of backgammon with Emma every night. They used to play the game between 8 and 8:30, of which Darwin meticulously kept score.
He even boasted that he had won 2795 games.
Darwin had to wait for more than 20 years to publish his groundbreaking theory
Darwin’s five-year voyage around the world ended in 1836.
This offered him inevitable research that contributed a lot to the development of his theory regarding natural selection and evolution!
However, concerned about the public acceptance of his idea, Darwin didn’t present his revolutionary theory until 1858!
In 1858, he made a joint announcement with Alfred Russel Wallace, a British naturalist.
Wallace was about to go public with a concept quite similar to Darwin’s.
Next year, Darwin published “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life.”
Darwin created a pro/con list to confirm whether to marry
I am really surprised to learn this amazing fact about Charles Darwin!
Darwin was a really logical person, even in matters of the heart!
In the year 1838, Darwin created a list with two columns writing the downsides and upsides of marriage!!
In the column “Marry,” 💒 he wrote: “constant companion and friend in old age,” “children,” and “someone to take care of the house.”
While in the “Not Marry” column, he noted down: “loss of time,” “freedom to go where one liked,” and “conversation of clever men at clubs.”
Darwin married his second cousin
Only after thinking about marriage closely Darwin concluded that he should marry.
However, later he made an odd decision for such a logical person like him, who would later illuminate the contribution of genetics in natural selection.
He married his first cousin 👰♀️.
However, this was not a big taboo in Darwin’s time! So, Charles and Emma remained married for around 43 years until, in 1882, Charles died!
Their happy marriage was recently retold in a children’s book in 2009 titled, “Charles and Emma: The Darwin’s Leap of Faith.”
The book actually focused on the religious friction of the couple!
Darwin preferred to eat exotic animals, except owls
Darwin was an adventurous eater, and he even applied his exceptional scientific curiosity to animals both in the wild as well as on the table.
While residing in Cambridge, Charles presided over the “Glutton Club.”
It was a weekly gathering of food lovers who loved to taste ‘strange flesh.’
The club even ate birds like bitterns and hawks; however, Darwin once gagged on a meal of owl 🦉, and wrote that the taste was ‘indescribable.’
However, that didn’t stop him from eating other exotic meats during his travels to South America. He even wrote about armadillos, saying they “taste and look like ducks.”
Charles Darwin was a reluctant revolutionary
Although Darwin started constructing his ideas regarding evolution while touring the South Atlantic, he delayed publishing his “On the Origin of Species” for over two decades.
Though he knew that his theory was sound, however, as someone well-versed in Christianity, he was worried about how it would be received in religious circles.
Ultimately, he decided to publish it many years later and was honored by the Linneman Society of London!
Darwin was a divinity student
After leaving the University of Edinburg, the person who challenged the religious belief of creationism enrolled at Cambridge to study.
Later, he wrote, “I did not then in the least doubt the strict and literal truth of every word in the Bible.”
However, his faith started to waver after seeing the evils of slavery on his trip and also following the deaths of three of his children!
He never characterized himself as an atheist, and he actually referred to himself as an agnostic.
Darwin didn’t coin the phrase ‘survival of the fittest”
Although associated with Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection, the famous phrase “survival of the fittest” was actually first used by Herbert Spencer, an English philosopher.
He coined this phrase in his 1864 “Principles of Biology” to connect his sociological and economic theories with the biological concepts of Darwin!
Later, the phrase was first adopted by Darwin in his fifth edition of “The Origin of Species.”
It was published in 1869. While writing this, Darwin thought that using the phrase used by Mr. Spencer would be more accurate than any other term.
Charles Darwin appeared on the 10-pound note for around 18 years
Little fact lovers, have you heard this amazing fact about Darwin? No? Let me tell you.
Starting in 2000, a portrait of a bearded Charles Darwin appeared on the back of the British 10-pound not.
The note also had an image of HMS Beagle and also a magnifying lens and fauna and flora seen on his travels!
However, in the year 2018, The Bank of England discontinued his 10 euro note!
Charles Darwin is buried inside Westminster Abbey
On April 19, 1882, after Darwin’s death, his family started preparations to bury⚰️ him in the village. It was the place where he had spent the last 40 years of his life!
However, Charles’s colleagues and friends started a lobbying campaign to give him the high honor of burial inside the famous Westminster Abbey in London!
After the public and newspapers joined the chorus, the Dean of Westminster approved the idea.
A week after Darwin’s death, he was laid to rest in England’s most revered church, close to fellow scientists Isaac Newton and John Herschel.
Darwin received a belated apology from the Church of England
Darwin never completely rejected Christianity nor embraced atheism.
However, he grew more agnostic over the years.
For his theory of evolution, Darwin had to face many scrutinizers, and the Church of England was, of course, one of them.
Now, over a century later, or around 126 years later, the Church of England has publicly apologized for misunderstanding Charles Darwin, the father of evolution!
There is a mountain named after Darwin
If you are a fan of Darwin and his theory, like me, then you will surely love this amazing fact about him!
He got a remarkable birthday present; a mountain!! Surprised?? Let me explain.
On his 25th birthday, Charles Darwin received a really large gift, an 8163 feet mountain.
The gift came from the HMS Beagle’s Captain FitzRoy.
Sitting atop the Cordillera Darwin, a beautiful mountain range located in the southwestern part of Tierra del Fuego, Mount Darwin ⛰️was a great gift for the great person.
Darwin learned taxidermy
The person who taught the father of evolution the art of preserving the bodies of animals was John Edmonstone.
He was a formerly enslaved person and a naturalist who taught Darwin taxidermy.
In 1817, shortly after gaining his freedom, Edmonstone moved to Edinburgh and found a living by giving lessons on taxidermy to students at Edinburgh University.
Soon after this, an intrigued Darwin sought lessons from Edmonstone to understand all about this invaluable skill!
Charles Darwin collected beetles
Little friends, did you know this interesting fact about Darwin?
He was an avid beetle collector and even kept a large collection! Amazing, right?
He would often use his unique collection while writing about evolution because he had learned about the different animal and plant species and studied their evolution!
Darwin’s collection included more than 1500 different kinds of beetle 🐞 species from all over the world!
He even kept notes on each species!
A lot of things have received their names after Darwin
There are many things that are named after Darwin.
The Charles Darwin Research Station, located on the Galapagos Islands, is named after him.
Some species of plants 🌳 and animals have been named after Charles Darwin in his honor.
A few examples are Darwin’s finches, Darwin’s frog, etc.
At chemistry school, Darwin had the nickname ‘Gas’
Nicknamed “Gas!” Can you imagine it?
Charles Darwin was famous as “Gas” at chemistry school, as he liked collecting and experimenting with gases!! Really interesting, isn’t it?
Darwin lost three of his children
I am very sorry to learn this sad fact about the father of evolution!
Darwin and his wife Emma had 10 children: William, Anne, Many, Henrietta, George, Francis, Elizabeth, Leonard, Charles, and Horace.
Both Charles and Mary died in infancy; however, Anne died when she was 10 years old. These deaths had a strong impact on Darwin.
Anne actually died of scarlet fever; however, many believed that she may have died from tuberculosis!
Final days of Darwin
In 1882, Darwin became seriously ill and even diagnosed with coronary thrombosis.
In his last days, Darwin was nursed by Emma, his wife, and two of his children, Francis and Henrietta.
While talking to his wife for the last time, Darwin said, “I am not the least afraid of death – remember what a good wife you have been to me – tell all my children to remember how good they have been to me.”
Summing up
Charles Darwin…isn’t the person and facts about him amazing??
We have tried to gather as much information about him as possible…so that your treasure of knowledge is enhanced.
Looking forward to get your views! 😲!
I’m a former teacher (and mother of Two Childs) with a background in child development. Here to help you with play-based learning activities for kids. ( Check my Next startup Cledemy.Com)
