Science & technology

Death of Gregor Mendel

6 January 1884

Gregor Mendel died on 6 January 1884 in Brno, aged 61. A Moravian scientist and Augustinian friar, Mendel is regarded as the founder of modern genetics. Working in the garden of the abbey of St Thomas in Brno, he cross-bred pea plants for several years and counted the traits of thousands of offspring. From the patterns he found he deduced that inheritance is carried by discrete units, now called genes, which are passed on according to regular rules. He reported his results in 1865 and 1866, but the scientific community largely ignored them. They were rediscovered around 1900, years after his death, and became the foundation of genetics. He later became abbot of his monastery.

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