Charles Darwin’s 129th death anniversary:

Revolutionary impact of the Theory of Evolution

Gaston de Rosayro

Charles Robert Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury, England died on this very day (April 19, 1882). Darwin was born on the same day as Abraham Lincoln. Darwin was the British naturalist who became famous for his theories of evolution and natural selection. Like several scientists before him, Darwin believed all the life on earth evolved (developed gradually) over millions of years from a few common ancestors.

In 1831, Darwin set out on H M S Beagle as a self-financed gentleman companion to the 26-year-old captain, Robert Fitzroy. The Beagle was on a British science expedition around the world. In South America Darwin found fossils of extinct animals that were similar to modern species. On the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean he noticed many variations among plants and animals of the same general type as those in South America.

The expedition visited places around the world, and Darwin studied plants and animals everywhere he went, collecting specimens for further study.

Upon his return to London in 1836, Darwin conducted thorough research of his notes and specimens. Out of this study grew several related theories: one, evolution did occur; two, evolutionary change was gradual, requiring thousands to millions of years; three, the primary mechanism for evolution was a process called natural selection; and four, the millions of species alive today arose from a single original life form through a branching process called ‘speciation’.

Revolutionary theory

Darwin’s theory of evolutionary selection holds that variation within species occurs randomly and that the survival or extinction of each organism is determined by that organism’s ability to adapt to its environment. He set these theories forth in his book called, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859) or “The Origin of Species” for short. After publication of Origin of Species, Darwin continued to write on botany, geology, and zoology until his death in 1882. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Darwin’s work had a tremendous impact on religious thought. Many people strongly opposed the idea of evolution because it conflicted with their religious convictions. Darwin avoided talking about the theological and sociological aspects of his work, but other writers used his theories to support their own theories about society. Darwin was a reserved, thorough, hard working scholar who concerned himself with the feelings and emotions not only of his family, but friends and peers as well.

It has been supposed that Darwin renounced evolution on his deathbed. Shortly after his death, temperance campaigner and evangelist Lady Elizabeth Hope claimed she visited Darwin at his deathbed, and witnessed the renunciation. Her story was printed in a Boston newspaper and subsequently spread. Lady Hope’s story was refuted by Darwin’s daughter Henrietta who stated, “I was present at his deathbed ... He never recanted any of his scientific views, either then or earlier.”

Darwin’s mother died when he was eight years old. Otherwise he enjoyed a golden childhood, cosseted and encouraged by adoring sisters, an older brother, and the large Darwin and Wedgwood clans. He was keenly interested in specimen collecting and chemical investigations, but at the Shrewsbury school, where he was an uninspired student, the headmaster, Dr Samuel Butler, stressed the classics and publicly rebuked Darwin for wasting his time with chemical experiments.

Youth and education

At age 16 he was sent to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh, where he was repelled by surgery performed without anaesthetics. During his two years in Scotland Darwin benefited from friendships with the zoologist Robert Grant, who introduced him to the study of marine animals, and the geologist Robert Jameson, who fed his growing interest in the history of the Earth.

Disappointed by Darwin’s lack of enthusiasm for medicine, his father sent him to the University of Cambridge in 1827 to study divinity. At the time Darwin adhered to the conventional beliefs of the Church of England. His academic record at Christ’s College was as undistinguished as it had been at Edinburgh.

He socialized considerably with hunting, shooting, riding, and sporting friends. Cambridge did not yet offer a degree in the natural sciences, but, guided by his older cousin William Darwin Fox (an entomologist who inspired in him a lifelong passion for collecting beetles), Darwin met the circle of Cambridge scientists led by the cleric-botanist John Stevens Henslow.

Soon a regular at Henslow’s “open houses,” Darwin accompanied him on daily walks and became known as “the man who walks with Henslow.” Henslow encouraged Darwin’s excitement about science and confidence in his own abilities.

On leaving Cambridge in the spring of 1831 Darwin, in preparation for a scientific trip to the Canary Islands, read Alexander von Humboldt’s Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent, a scientific travelogue of a journey to Central and the northern parts of South America. At Henslow’s recommendation he accompanied Adam Sedgwick, Woodwardian professor of geology at Cambridge, on a three-week tour of North Wales to learn geologic fieldwork.

In August 1831, at Henslow’s recommendation to the Admiralty, Darwin was invited to sail as the unpaid naturalist on HMS Beagle. The ship was to survey the east and west coasts of South America and continue to the Pacific islands to establish a chain of chronometric stations.

Galapagos

Henslow suggested Darwin as both an acute observer and a companion for the aristocratic young captain, Robert FitzRoy. (The Beagle already had a naturalist-surgeon, but one whom FitzRoy found socially unsuitable.) Robert Darwin first refused permission on grounds that it was dangerous and would not advance Charles in his career. But upon the intercession of his brother-in-law, Josiah Wedgwood II, he changed his mind. On December 27, 1831, Charles Darwin sailed from Plymouth, Eng., on the Beagle, a 10-gun brig that had been refitted as a three-masted bark. The voyage, planned for two years, lasted five, during which Darwin kept meticulous notes and sent back geologic and biologic specimens.

In a letter to FitzRoy accepting the post Darwin explained that he expected the voyage to be a “second birth.” There is no doubt that the years he spent exploring the South American continent and the offshore islands of the Galapagos honed his skills as a collector, observer, and theorist.

Often seasick, Darwin rested horizontally in a hammock during the worst motion and spent long periods of time ashore whenever the opportunity arose. He delighted in the exotica of the tropics. Adventurous, he braved his way through armed political rebellions, rode with the gauchos in Argentina, and on collecting and shooting expeditions justified his earlier devotion to sport.

He joined the crew in towing the ship’s boats upstream and once rescued the expedition by running to save a boat from a tidal wave. He seemed to relish danger and was sustained in the considerable discomfort by a lively curiosity.

[Lord Byron]

Of high moral standards

Dilmika Tennakoon

George Gordon Noel Byron, also known as Lord Byron, born January 22, 1788 in London died on a day like today. He was a famous as well as controversial English Romantic poets of the late 17th and early 18th Century.

He studied at a Grammar school in Scotland after his mother and he settled in Scotland.

They had a hard life, living in lodgings and had a small income to barely fulfil their needs. It is said that he was abused by his nurse when he was young and as an impact he displayed animosity towards women later in his life.

He inherited the title and also the estates from one of his great-uncles at the age of 10. His mother and he, came to England and settled in Newstead Abbey as King Henry eight had presented the Newstead Abbey to Byron.

Byron graduated from Cambridge in 1808. Hours of Idleness was Byron’s first collection of poetry which appeared in 1807.

The collection was not successful and came under heavy criticism.

Byron published the first two cantos of Child Harold’s Pilgrimage in 1812. This was his real poetic success. He became famous in London society with its appearance. His other famous work The Corsair (1814), sold 10,000 copies on the first day of publication.

Byron left England in 1816 due to rumours of his incest and debts. His Satiric masterpiece, Don Juan was written during his stay in Italy.

Byron was condemned by his contemporaries for his moral standards. Although he was criticized badly his influence on European poetry, music, novel, opera and painting was enormous. Byron fell ill on April 9, 1824 and died ten days later in Greece at the age of 36. At the time of his death he was engaged in the Greek struggle for independence.

He was buried near Newstead Abbey after his body was returned to England. His death was a great loss to English literature.

Bay of Pigs invasion

The Bay of Pigs Invasion or the Giron Battle was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro.

The invasion was launched in April 1961, less than three months after John F Kennedy assumed the presidency in the United States. The Cuban armed forces, trained and equipped by Eastern Bloc nations, defeated the invading combatants within three days.

The main invasion landing took place at a beach named Playa Giron, located at the mouth of the bay. The invasion is named after the Bay of Pigs, although that is just one possible translation of the Spanish Bahia de Cochinos.

In Cuba, the conflict is usually known in Latin America as La Batalla de Giron, or just Playa Giron.

Sky diving

Also known as Parachuting, skydiving is the action of exiting an aircraft or jumping off a tall structure, and returning to earth with the aid of a parachute.

It may involve a certain amount of free-fall, a time during which the parachute has not been deployed and the body gradually accelerates downward.

Junta

A group of military officers ruling a country after seizing power

Fascicle

A bundle or a cluster. Fascicle in terms of a book is a discrete section issued or published separately

Bicycle Day

The psychedelic drug LSD was first synthesized by the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann in the Sandoz (now Novartis) laboratories in Basel, Switzerland 1938. Three days later, April 19, 1943, Hofmann performed a self-experiment to determine the true effects of LSD, intentionally ingesting 0.25 miligrams of the substance, an amount he predicted to be a threshold dose (an actual threshold dose is 20 micrograms).

Less than an hour later, Hofmann experienced sudden and intense changes in perception.

He asked his laboratory assistant to escort him home and, as use of motor vehicles was prohibited because of wartime restrictions, they had to make the journey on a bicycle. On the way, Hofmann’s condition rapidly deteriorated. Soon his terror began to give way to a sense of good fortune and enjoyment.

The events of the first LSD trip, now known as “Bicycle Day”, after the bicycle ride home, proved to Hofmann that he had indeed made a significant discovery.

A psychoactive substance with extraordinary potency, capable of causing paradigm shifts of consciousness in incredibly low doses, Hofmann foresaw the drug as a powerful psychiatric tool; because of its intense and introspective nature, he couldn’t imagine anyone using it recreationally.

1529 – Second Parliament of Spiers bans Lutheranism

1713 – With no living male heirs, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, issues the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 to ensure that Habsburg lands and the Austrian throne would be inherited by his daughter, Maria Theresa of Austria (not actually born until 1717).

1770 – Captain James Cook sights the eastern coast of Australia.

1810 – Venezuela achieves home rule: Vicente Emparan, Governor of the Captaincy General is removed by the people of Caracas and a Junta is installed.

1839 – The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom.

1909 – Joan of Arc, declared a saint

1910 – Halley’s Comet seen by naked eye 1st time this trip (Curacao)

1919 – Leslie Irvin of the United States makes the first successful voluntary free-fall parachute jump using a new kind of self-contained parachute.

1928 – The 125th and final fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary is published.

1936 – Anti-Jewish riots break out in Palestine

1943 – Bicycle Day – Swiss chemist Dr Albert Hofmann deliberately takes LSD for the first time.

1954 – Constituent Assembly of Pakistan decides Urdu and Bengali to be national languages of Pakistan.

1960 – Students in South Korea hold a nationwide pro-democracy protest against their president Syngman Rhee, eventually forcing him to resign.

1961 – The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba ends in success for the defenders.

1971 – Launch of Salyut 1, the first space station.

1995 – Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, is bombed, killing 168. That same day convicted murderer Richard Wayne Snell, who had ties to one of the bombers, Timothy McVeigh, is executed in Arkansas.