Death of Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin died on 19 April 1882 in Down House, aged 73. An English naturalist, Darwin sailed around the world as the naturalist on HMS Beagle, and his observations of fossils and wildlife, including the finches and tortoises of the Galápagos Islands, led him to the idea of evolution. He worked on his theory of natural selection for twenty years before publishing On the Origin of Species in 1859, which argued that species change over time through the survival of those best adapted to their environment. He later applied the idea to humans in The Descent of Man. His theory became the foundation of modern biology, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey.

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