Darwin Publishes On the Origin of Species
Charles Darwin had been developing his theory of evolution by natural selection since the Beagle voyage (1831–36), where observations in the Galápagos Islands suggested that species were not fixed but changed over time. Spurred by Alfred Russel Wallace's independent development of the same theory, Darwin rushed On the Origin of Species to publication in November 1859. Its central argument: all species descend with modification from common ancestors; the mechanism is natural selection — individuals with heritable traits better suited to their environment survive and reproduce more successfully, passing those traits to offspring. The first edition of 1,250 copies sold out on the day of publication. The book caused immediate controversy: the 1860 Oxford debate between Thomas Huxley ('Darwin's Bulldog') and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce became legendary. Its implications were profound: Theological — it replaced divine creation with a purely natural process; Philosophical — it gave rise to Social Darwinism (the misapplication of 'survival of the fittest' to human society); Scientific — it unified all biology under a single explanatory framework. Darwin published The Descent of Man in 1871, explicitly applying evolution to human beings.
- Year: 1859 CE
- Category: Scientific
