Chronology of Events in Earth Sciences History

Oct/24/1632:	Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, microscopist, born in Delft, the Netherlands.
Jul/18/1635:	Robert Hooke, scientist especially known for work in microscopy, born in Freshwater, Isle of Wight, England.
Jan/11/1638:	Birth of Nicolas Steno, pioneering geologist who first articulated the Law of Superposition, in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Dec/13/1640:	Robert Plot, first Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, born in Borden, Kent, England. Plot is also notable for describing a giant fossilized femur, later known to be from a dinosaur.
Dec/25/1642:	Isaac Newton, mathematician and scientist, born in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Lincolnshire, England.
Nov/28/1660:	Founding meeting of the Royal Society, at Gresham College, London. Twelve 'natural philosophers' were present and listened to a lecture by Christopher Wren. Later, many geologists and scientists important to the development of earth science in the 19th century were Fellows of the Society.
Jan/18/1664:	Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge University, England, established by King Charles II. The Chair was funded by a bequest in 1663 from Henry Lucas, a former MP for Cambridge.
May/01/1665:	Birth of John Woodward, fossil collector and antiquinarian, in Derbyshire, England. Woodward's will created and endowed the Woodwardian professorship of geology at Cambridge University.
Nov/25/1686:	Death of Nicolas Steno, pioneering geologist who first articulated the Law of Superposition, in Schwerin, Germany, at the age of 48.
Apr/30/1696:	Robert Plot, first Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, died in Borden, Kent, England, at the age of 55. Plot is also notable for describing a giant fossilized femur, later known to be from a dinosaur.
Jan/26/1700:	Inferred date of the Cascadia Earthquake, which had an estimated magnitude around 9.0. This 'quake affected large areas along the Pacific coast of north America and caused tsunamis along the east coast of Japan.
Mar/03/1703:	Robert Hooke, scientist especially known for work in microscopy, died in London, England, at the age of 67.
Sep/07/1707:	Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, influential French naturalist, born in Montbard, France.
Jul/18/1720:	Birth of Gilbert White, parson and naturalist, in Selborne, Hampshire, England.
Aug/30/1723:	Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, microscopist, died in Delft, the Netherlands, at the age of 90.
Jun/03/1726:	James Hutton born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Hutton was one of the first to write about erosion and rock formation and their implications for the age of the earth.
Mar/20/1727:	Isaac Newton, mathematician and scientist, died in Kensington, Middlesex, England, at the age of 84.
Apr/25/1728:	Death of John Woodward, fossil collector and antiquinarian, at Gresham College, London, England, at the age of 62. Woodward's will created and endowed the Woodwardian professorship of geology at Cambridge University.
Dec/12/1731:	Erasmus Darwin, physician, scientist, writer and grandfather of Charles Darwin, born at Elston Hall, Nottinghamshire, England.
May/07/1744:	Birth of Francis Beaufort, naval officer and later head of the Hydrographic Office of the British Admiralty, in Navan, County Meath, Ireland.
Aug/01/1744:	Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, naturalist and biologist probably best known for proposing 'the inheritance of acquired characteristics', born in Bazentin-le-Petit, France.
Mar/10/1748:	John Playfair, scientist best known as the explicator of the Huttonian idea of Uniformitarianism, born in Benvie, Angus, Scotland.
Jun/07/1753:	Establishment of the British Museum by Act of Parliament.
Nov/01/1755:	The Lisbon Earthquake, estimated to be magnitude 9.0, caused many deaths and widespread devastation in Lisbon, Portugal, and surrounding areas.
Dec/13/1759:	Birth of John Hailstone, Woodwardian Professor of Geology at Cambridge and original member of the Geological Society, in Hoxton, near London, England.
May/30/1766:	Birth of Robert Waring Darwin, physician, financier, and father of Charles, in Lichfield, England.
Aug/06/1766:	William Hyde Wollaston, chemist, born in East Dereham, Norfolk, England. The Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society, London, is named for him.
Mar/23/1769:	Birth of William Smith in Churchill, Oxfordshire, England. Smith is known as 'The Father of English Geology'.
Apr/03/1769:	Birth of Josiah Wedgwood II, the uncle and father-in-law of Charles Darwin.
Aug/23/1769:	Georges Cuvier, influential French naturalist and paleontologist, born in Montbéliard, France.
May/23/1770:	Birth of Carl Linnaeus, originator of modern biological taxonomy, in Råshult, southern Sweden.
Apr/15/1772:	Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, naturalist and founder of the menagerie at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, born at Étampes, Seine-et-Oise, near Paris, France.
Nov/28/1772:	Luke Howard born in London, England. Howard devised a classification scheme for clouds which, with some modification, is still in use today.
Dec/21/1773:	Robert Brown, botanist and microscopist, born in Montrose, Scotland. Brown travelled to Australia with the Flinders expedition and subsequently compiled a magisterial flora of the continent. He was also the first to see and report on 'Brownian Motion', from his observations of pollen grains under the microscope.
Jul/11/1774:	Robert Jameson, natural historian who held the chair of natural history at Edinburgh University for more than 50 years, born in Leith, Scotland.
Jan/10/1778:	Death of Carl Linnaeus, originator of modern biological taxonomy, in Uppsala, Sweden, at the age of 70.
Jan/18/1778:	George Bellas Greenough born in London, England. Greenough was a geologist, and was a founding member and first president of the Geological Society.
Feb/04/1778:	Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, botanist, born in Geneva, Switzerland.
Jun/08/1783:	Beginning of the Laki fissure eruption in Iceland. Large quantities of acid gasses were emitted during the eruption and had a detectable effect on northern hemisphere climates in the following few years.
Mar/12/1784:	William Buckland, influential geologist and clergyman, born in Axminster, Devon.
Mar/07/1785:	The presentation of the first of two lectures by James Hutton on his theory of the earth to the Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The lecture was entitled 'Concerning the System of the Earth, Its Duration, and Stability'. Hutton was too ill to attend, and the lecture was given by his friend, Dr Joseph Black, a distinguished chemist.
Mar/22/1785:	Adam Sedgwick, Woodwardian professor of geology at University of Cambridge for 55 years (1818 until his death in 1873), born in Dent, Yorkshire, England.
Apr/04/1785:	The presentation of the second of two lectures by James Hutton on his theory of the earth to the Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The lecture was entitled 'Concerning the System of the Earth, Its Duration, and Stability'.
Jun/07/1787:	William Daniel Conybeare, geologist and clergyman, born in Bishopsgate, London. Conybeare did important work in palaeontology and descriptive geology. He was a supporter of diluvialism and an opponent of Lyell's ideas.
Apr/16/1788:	Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, influential French naturalist, died in Paris, France, at the age of 70.
Feb/03/1790:	Gideon Mantell, the avocational palaeontologist who first described Iguanodon, was born in Lewes, Sussex, England.
Sep/22/1791:	Michael Faraday, chemist and physicist, born at Newington Butts, Surrey, England.
Feb/19/1792:	Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, geologist, born in Tarradale, Scotland. His name is associated with a graptolite, Didymograptus murchisoni, one of the important biostratigraphic markers for the Ordovician.
Mar/07/1792:	Birth of John Herschel, astronomer and mathematician, in Slough, England.
May/09/1793:	William Hyde Wollaston, chemist, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London.
Jun/01/1793:	Birth of Augustus Earle, the first artist on the Beagle voyage, in London, England.
Jun/26/1793:	Death of Gilbert White, parson and naturalist, in Selborne, Hampshire, England, at the age of 72.
Feb/06/1796:	Birth of John Henslow, Cambridge academic and Charles Darwin's mentor, in Rochester, England.
Feb/10/1796:	Sir Henry de la Beche, geologist and first director of the British Geological Survey, born in England.
Mar/26/1797:	James Hutton died in Edinburgh, Scotland, aged 70. Hutton was one of the first to write about erosion and rock formation and their implications for the age of the earth.
Nov/14/1797:	Sir Charles Lyell, author of Principles of Geology, born in Kirriemuir, Scotland.
Apr/20/1798:	Sir William Logan, first director of the Geological Survey of Canada, born in Montreal.
Dec/21/1798:	Birth of John Clements Wickham, Lieutenant on the second Beagle voyage, in Leith, Scotland.
May/21/1799:	Mary Anning, fossil collector, born in Lyme Regis, Dorset, England.
May/25/1800:	Leonard Jenyns, John Henslow's brother-in-law and the naturalist who described the fish specimens Darwin brought back from the Beagle voyage, born in London, England.
Mar/21/1801:	Birth of Conrad Martens, the second artist on the Beagle voyage, in London, England.
Apr/18/1802:	Erasmus Darwin, physician, scientist, writer and grandfather of Charles Darwin, died at Breadsall Priory, Derbyshire, England, at the age of 70.
Jul/10/1802:	Robert Chambers, revealed after his death as the author of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), born in Peebles, Scotland.
Jan/21/1803:	Birth of Hensleigh Wedgwood, Emma Darwin's brother.
Dec/31/1803:	Robert Jameson succeeds to the chair of natural history at Edinburgh University, a post he held for more than 50 years.
Mar/07/1804:	Inaugural meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society, London. Through its encouragement of gardening, the society also stimulated plant collecting in many areas of the world, thus increasing botanical knowledge, albeit with some negative impacts on indigenous flora.
Sep/14/1804:	John Gould, ornithologist who identified the bird specimens that Charles Darwin collected on the Beagle expedition, born in Lyme Regis, Dorset, England.
Apr/23/1805:	Birth of William Darwin Fox near Elvaston, Derbyshire, England. Fox was second cousin to Charles Darwin and the two men were close friends when at Cambridge University. He became a clergyman and naturalist.
Jul/05/1805:	Robert FitzRoy, the Captain of HMS Beagle, born in Suffolk, England.
Oct/28/1806:	Birth of Alphonse Pyrame de Candolle, a botanist and son of Augustin de Candolle, in Paris, France.
Feb/08/1807:	Birth of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, artist and sculptor best known for the Crystal Palace dinosaurs, the first attempt at life-sized dinosaur sculptures, in London, England.
May/28/1807:	Louis Agassiz born in Switzerland. Agassiz became a prominent geologist and palaeontologist in the USA. He was an advocate of catastrophism, but also influential in elucidating the role of glaciation as a landscape process. Glacial Lake Agassiz was named after him in 1879.
Nov/13/1807:	Inaugural meeting of the Geological Society, London, the world's oldest geoscience society, at the Freemasons Tavern, Covent Garden.
Feb/12/1809:	Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England.
Nov/26/1809:	Date of plan Number 3974, Naval Dockyard, Woolwich, for the ship Cadmus. These plans were subsequently modified and formed the basis for construction of HMS Beagle and HMS Barracouta.
Feb/09/1810:	Robert FitzRoy's mother, Frances, died, when he was only four years old.
Apr/06/1810:	Philip Henry Gosse, naturalist and writer, born in Worcester, England. Gosse is best known as the writer of Omphalos, an attempt to reconcile a literalist interpretation of scripture with newly-emerging ideas about the age of the earth.
Nov/18/1810:	Birth of Bartholomew James Sulivan, naval officer and Lieutenant on the second Beagle voyage, in Tregew, near Falmouth, Cornwall.
Nov/18/1810:	Birth of Asa Gray, botanist, in Sauquoit, New York. Gray was one of Darwin's leading adherents in the US.
Mar/02/1811:	Hugh Strickland, natural historian, born in Reighton, Yorkshire.
Dec/12/1811:	Robert Brown, botanist and microscopist, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London.
Dec/16/1811:	Earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.7 affected New Madrid, Missouri. This was the first in a sequence of seismic events that continued until around 1817.
Feb/07/1812:	The New Madrid Earthquake, with an estimated magnitude of 7.9, was felt over a wide area in southern Missouri and Illinois and northern Tennessee and Arkansas. This was the largest in a sequence of seismic events that began in 1811 and continued until 1817.
May/20/1812:	Robert FitzRoy writes to his father, Lord Charles FitzRoy, from the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth, outlining his outstanding academic achievements in course work.
Feb/15/1815:	Edward Forbes, natural historian and successor to Robert Jameson, born in Douglas, Isle of Man.
Apr/15/1815:	Beginning of the eruption of Tambora volcano, Indonesia, the largest eruption of modern times. The eruption had significant effects on climate in subsequent years; 1816 was so cold in the northern hemisphere that it was called 'the year without a summer'.
Aug/01/1815:	Publication date of the first geological map of Britain, compiled by William Smith.
Feb/16/1817:	Working drawings for HMS Beagle and her sister ship HMS Barracouta sent to Royal Naval Dockyard, Woolwich.
Jun/30/1817:	Joseph Dalton Hooker, botanist, plant collector, and friend of Charles Darwin, born in Halesworth, Suffolk, England. Hooker was a botanist on HMS Erebus for James Clark Ross's expedition to Antarctica.
Jul/15/1817:	Death of Susannah Darwin (nee Wedgwood), Charles Darwin's mother. He was eight years old at the time.
Feb/26/1818:	William Buckland elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London.
Dec/24/1818:	James Joule, physicist, born in Salford, Lancashire, England.
Jan/23/1819:	Earliest known example of Charles Darwin's handwriting, an artifact label that reads 'A piece of a tile found in Wenlock Abi C. Darwin January 23 1819', written when he was 9 years old.
Jul/20/1819:	John Playfair, scientist best known as the explicator of the Huttonian idea of Uniformitarianism, died in Edinburgh, Scotland, at the age of 71.
Aug/13/1819:	George Stokes, physicist and mathematician, born in Skreen, County Sligo, Ireland.
Dec/09/1819:	William Conybeare elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London.
Dec/23/1819:	Sir Henry de la Beche, geologist, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London.
May/11/1820:	HMS Beagle launched at the Royal Naval Dockyard, Woolwich, London.
Jan/02/1821:	Birth of James Croll near Wolfhill, Perthshire, Scotland.
Feb/01/1821:	Adam Sedgwick elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London.
Mar/21/1821:	Luke Howard elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London. Howard devised a classification scheme for clouds which, with some modification, is still in use today.
Oct/04/1821:	Charles Lyell visits Gideon Mantell at his house in Lewes, Sussex. The two men, both interested in the newly-developing science of geology, strike up a friendship.
Nov/21/1821:	Joseph Pentland writes to William Buckland and suggests that he should visit Kirkdale Cave in Yorkshire and examine the fossils there.
Feb/21/1822:	Rev. William Buckland presents his findings on the faunal remains in a cave in Kirkdale, Yorkshire, to a meeting of the Royal Society. He concluded that the bones were there because the cave had been used as a hyaena den.
Jan/08/1823:	Alfred Russel Wallace born in Usk, Wales. Wallace independently derived the idea of 'natural selection'.
Dec/10/1823:	Mary Anning, fossil collector, discovers a complete Plesiosaurus in the cliffs of Lyme Regis, Dorset.
Sep/09/1823:	Joseph Leidy, dinosaur palaeontologist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Jun/26/1824:	Birth of William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, physicist and engineer, in Belfast, Ireland. In earth sciences, Kelvin is best known for his 1862 estimate of the age of the earth at 100 million years.
Jul/26/1824:	Alfred Richard Cecil Selwyn, geologist and Director of the Geological Survey of Canada, born in Kilmington, Somerset, England.
Sep/07/1824:	After completing his studies with distinction at the Royal Naval College in Portsmouth, England, Robert FitzRoy is made lieutenant.
Feb/10/1825:	To his great satisfaction, Gideon Mantell's paper on the discovery and naming of Iguanodon was read to the Royal Society, London.
May/04/1825:	Thomas Henry Huxley, nicknamed 'Darwin's Bulldog' for his defence of the ideas in On the Origin of Species, born in Ealing, London.
Jun/17/1825:	Charles Darwin leaves Shrewsbury School, where he had been very unhappy, at the age of 16.
Sep/25/1825:	Pringle Stokes appointed captain of HMS Beagle.
Nov/24/1825:	Gideon Mantell elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London.
Dec/22/1825:	Gideon Mantell is admitted as a member of the Royal Society, London, largely on the basis of his research on Iguanodon fossils.
Jan/01/1826:	Charles Darwin, a 16-year-old medical student at Edinburgh University, begins his first notebook of zoological observations on marine organisms on the beach at Leith.
Feb/02/1826:	Sir Charles Lyell elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London.
Apr/06/1826:	Sir Roderick Impey Murchison elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London.
May/22/1826:	Under the command of Captain Pringle Stokes, HMS Beagle sets off from Plymouth on her first voyage to South America.
Mar/27/1827:	Charles Darwin, still a medical student at Edinburgh University, begins entries in a second zoological notebook, working more closely on the reproductive characters of marine invertebrates.
Mar/27/1827:	Charles Darwin's first scientific discovery, in marine biology, is announced at a Plinian Society meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Dec/11/1827:	Bartholemew Sulivan, then serving as a midshipman with Robert FitzRoy aboard the Thetis, first sees HMS Beagle, the ship in which he was later to serve with Darwin.
Jan/26/1828:	Charles Darwin arrives at Cambridge University to begin three years of study.
Aug/02/1828:	In his cabin aboard the Beagle at anchor in Port Famine, Tierra del Fuego, Pringle Stokes, the ship's captain, depressed and frustrated with his command, shoots himself.
Aug/12/1828:	After shooting himself in the head ten days earlier, Captain Pringle Stokes dies aboard the Beagle at anchor in Port Famine, Tierra del Fuego.
Nov/23/1828:	Robert FitzRoy writes to his sister, Fanny, from Rio de Janeiro reporting his promotion to captaincy of the Beagle.
Dec/15/1828:	Following the suicide of Pringle Stokes, Robert FitzRoy is given command of the Beagle and takes over as captain on the ship's arrival in Montevideo.
Dec/22/1828:	William Hyde Wollaston, chemist, died in London, England, at the age of 62. The Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society, London, is named for him.
Jan/30/1829:	HMS Beagle is caught in a violent storm near Maldonado, off the coast of Uruguay. Two seamen are lost, a severe blow to the new commander, Captain FitzRoy.
Apr/13/1829:	The Beagle's crew spotted some Fuegians, the first indigenous people FitzRoy had met in Tierra del Fuego.
Nov/19/1829:	After wintering at Chiloé Island, off the west coast of Chile, the Beagle with Captain FitzRoy in command, sailed south to survey the southern shores of Tierra del Fuego.
Dec/21/1829:	FitzRoy sends the whaleboat under the command of Murray with a crew of six to survey the east side of Landfall Island. The crew are stranded by a storm and, trying to make their way back to the Beagle, two are attacked by some Fuegians. This is the first violence between the Beagle expedition and Fuegians.
Dec/28/1829:	Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, naturalist and biologist probably best known for proposing 'the inheritance of acquired characteristics', died in Paris, France, at the age of 85.
Jan/29/1830:	Anchored off London Island, FitzRoy again sends Murray and a crew in the whaleboat to take observations at Cape Desolation.
Jan/30/1830:	Murray and his crew wake to find that their whaleboat has been stolen and they are stranded at Cape Desolation.
Feb/05/1830:	Paddling a makeshift coracle, two of the whaleboat's crew arrive back at the Beagle. FitzRoy immediately sets off to rescue the other men and investigate the theft.
Feb/13/1830:	While searching for the whaleboat, FitzRoy and the Beagle's crew have a violent confrontation with a camp of Fuegians, in the course of which one Fuegian was killed, an event which fills FitzRoy with remorse.
Feb/23/1830:	The search for the whaleboat being unsuccessful, FitzRoy and his crew return to the Beagle to continue their surveying work.
Mar/01/1830:	FitzRoy anchors the Beagle in March Harbour, off Christmas Sound on the west coast of Tierra del Fuego, and resumes surveying.
Mar/03/1830:	FitzRoy takes on board the Beagle a young Fuegian he names York Minster, after a nearby cape.
May/11/1830:	FitzRoy takes a fourth Fuegian on board the Beagle, a young man the crew name Jemmy Button.
Jun/07/1830:	FitzRoy sails the Beagle back into Atlantic waters, heading north to rendezvous with the Adventure and Captain King.
Oct/14/1830:	Under the command of Robert FitzRoy, the Beagle completes her first voyage to South America and arrives back in England.
Nov/15/1830:	Nominal birthday of Harriet, a giant Galapagos tortoise (Geochelone nigra), once thought to be one of the three collected by Charles Darwin during his visit to the islands in 1835. Although the link to Darwin may be tenuous, Harriet was probably the oldest living animal, at about 175 years at her death in 2006. She lived in the Australia Zoo in Queensland, Australia, for many years.
Feb/18/1831:	The first Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society, London, is awarded to William Smith. In the award speech, Adam Sedgwick coined the phrase 'Father of English Geology' by which Smith is commonly known.
Apr/26/1831:	Charles Darwin awarded a B.A. degree from Cambridge University.
Jun/13/1831:	James Clerk Maxwell, theoretical physicist and mathematician, best known for Maxwell's equations, born in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Jul/04/1831:	HMS Beagle is commissioned for her second surveying voyage to South America, under the command of Captain FitzRoy.
Aug/05/1831:	Charles Darwin sets off from The Mount to north Wales on a geological fieldtrip with Professor Adam Sedgwick.
Aug/06/1831:	Having been contacted by his friend Francis Beaufort, George Peacock, Cambridge mathematician, writes to John Henslow asking if he can find some young man to go on a voyage to South America as a companion to Captain FitzRoy.
Aug/20/1831:	Charles Darwin leaves Professor Sedgwick in north Wales and goes to Barmounth to visit some friends from Cambridge.
Aug/24/1831:	Professor Henslow writes to Charles Darwin, informing him of the offer to go on a voyage to South America as a companion to Captain FitzRoy.
Aug/29/1831:	Charles Darwin returns to Shrewsbury from a geology fieldtrip to norh Wales with Professor Sedgwick to find the letter from Professor Henslow waiting for him, telling him about the offer of a trip to South America.
Aug/30/1831:	Charles Darwin's father objects to his son going on the voyage to South America so Darwin reluctantly writes to Henslow turning down the opportunity.
Sep/01/1831:	His father's objections having been overcome, with the assistance of his uncle Josiah Wedgwood, Charles Darwin writes to Francis Beaufort, Hydrographer to the Navy, to accept the offer to accompany Captain FitzRoy on the voyage to South America.
Sep/05/1831:	Charles Darwin and Robert FitzRoy meet for the first time, in London. Fortunately they like each other, which augurs well for the upcoming Beagle voyage.
Oct/24/1831:	Charles Darwin travels from London to Devonport by coach to join the Beagle.
Oct/29/1831:	Birth of Charles Othniel Marsh, palaeontologist, in Lockport, New York, USA.
Nov/21/1831:	Charles Darwin brings his gear aboard the Beagle and is dismayed by the cramped size of his shared quarters.
Dec/10/1831:	The Beagle leaves port, setting out on her second voyage, with Charles Darwin aboard. Bad weather forces FitzRoy to return to Plymouth, where the ship and crew are forced to wait for another two weeks for the weather to moderate.
Dec/27/1831:	HMS Beagle leaves Plymouth and sets sail for a round the world voyage. On board is Charles Darwin as ship's naturalist.
Dec/29/1831:	Charles Darwin writes of the miseries of sea-sickness on his second day out on the Beagle voyage. He was to suffer from sea-sickness constantly when at sea for the next five years.
Jan/06/1832:	HMS Beagle anchors off Tenerife in the Canary Islands but the crew, including Charles Darwin, are not allowed to land because of quarantine on British ships, imposed because of a cholera outbreak in England.
Jan/06/1832:	Charles Darwin begins the first of his zoology notebooks on the Beagle voyage.
Jan/16/1832:	Charles Darwin explores Saint Jago, one of the Cape Verde Islands. He is astonished and overwhelmed by his first experience of tropical vegetation, birds, and insects.
Jan/17/1832:	Charles Darwin, still in the Cape Verde Islands, realizes that he too could write a book about the geology of the places he will visit during the voyage of HMS Beagle.
Feb/12/1832:	At sea on board HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin is afflicted by sea-sickness so severe that it prevents him from carrying out his natural history work.
Feb/29/1832:	Charles Darwin writes ecstatically of his first experience of a Brazilian forest, overwhelmed by the richness of the natural environment.
Mar/15/1832:	HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, leaves Bahia, Brazil, and heads south to start surveying.
May/13/1832:	Georges Cuvier, influential French naturalist and paleontologist, died in Paris, France, at the age of 63.
Jul/05/1832:	HMS Beagle leaves Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and heads south along the coast of South America to continue surveying. Coincidentally, this is Captain FitzRoy's 27th birthday.
Jul/26/1832:	HMS Beagle arrives in Montevideo, now the capital of Uruguay, at the mouth of the Rio de La Platte on the east coast of South America.
Sep/07/1832:	Charles Darwin arrives in Bahia Blanca, now in Argentina, on east coast of South America, and sets off to explore the interior.
Sep/20/1832:	Charles Darwin arrives in Buenos Aires, now Argentina, having travelled through the interior and made observations on geology and natural history.
Dec/06/1832:	HMS Beagle leaves Rio Plata, heading south along the South American coast to Patagonia.
Dec/16/1832:	HMS Beagle arrives off the east coast of Tierra del Fuego and Charles Darwin gets his first sight of the bleak terrain.
Dec/17/1832:	HMS Beagle arrives for the first time in Tierra del Fuego and anchors in the Bay of Good Success. Charles Darwin sees Fuegians for the first time.
Dec/21/1832:	HMS Beagle rounds Cape Horn and encounters a strong gale.
Dec/23/1832:	HMS Beagle arrives at Port Desire, Patagonia, having been almost a year out of England.
Dec/25/1832:	HMS Beagle and its crew spend their first Christmas Day away from home in Tierra del Fuego, anchored in a cove they name 'Wigwam', near a hill called Kater's Peak. The ship is confined there for six days by bad weather.
Dec/30/1832:	HMS Beagle starts westward from Wigwam Cove along the coast of Tierra del Fuego. The ship encounters constant gales.
Jan/11/1833:	HMS Beagle comes in sight of York Minster mountain, Tierra del Fuego, before being beaten back by intense gales, which lasted for four days and during which the ship almost foundered.
Jan/13/1833:	HMS Beagle is rolled onto her side by three gigantic waves. The ship almost founders and FitzRoy later writes that a fourth wave would have finished them.
Jan/15/1833:	After surviving four days with terrible storms, HMS Beagle anchors in Goeree Roads, Tierra del Fuego.
Jan/19/1833:	Four boats, commanded by Captain FitzRoy, set sail along the Beagle Channel.
Jan/23/1833:	The Beagle's away-team enters Ponsonby Sound and, guided by Jemmy Button, anchors at a cove named Woollya. Here, the crew sets up some large wigwams and unloads goods. The three Fuegans (Jemmy Button, York Minster, and Fuegia Basket) are left here, with Mr Matthews, a missionary.
Jan/27/1833:	Having set up the mission station at Woollya and anxious to avoid any conflict with the Fuegians, FitzRoy and his crew depart, leaving Matthews with York Minster, Jemmy Button, and Fuegia Basket at the settlement.
Jan/28/1833:	The Beagle's away-team returns to Woollya and, finding all peaceful, Captain FitzRoy determines to continue his survey work in the western part of the Beagle Channel.
Jan/29/1833:	The Beagle's away-team enters the north arm of the Beagle Channel and continues its surveying work. Darwin sees a calving glacier.
Feb/06/1833:	The Beagle's away-team arrives back at Woollya and finds the site plundered and Matthews terrified that he will be killed by the Fuegans. He is taken back on board the Beagle.
Feb/07/1833:	The Beagle's away-team arrives back at the ship, after being absent for twenty days.
Feb/26/1833:	HMS Beagle leaves Tierra del Fuego and in stormy seas heads east to the Falkland Islands.
Mar/01/1833:	HMS Beagle anchors in Berkeley Sound, East Falkland Island, for the first time.
Mar/02/1833:	Edward Hellyer, FitzRoy's clerk, drowns while duck hunting in the Falklands.
Dec/05/1833:	After several weeks exploring ashore, Charles Darwin rejoins the Beagle at Montevideo.
Jan/09/1834:	HMS Beagle arrives in Port St Julien, on the coast of Patagonia.
Feb/02/1834:	HMS Beagle anchors in Port Famine.
Feb/16/1834:	Birth of Ernst Haeckel, biologist who strongly supported Darwin's work, in Potsdam, now in Germany.
Feb/28/1834:	HMS Beagle anchors once more at the eastern end of the Beagle Channel and Captain FitzRoy decides to head to Ponsonby Sound and check on the Fuegans at Woollya.
Mar/05/1834:	HMS Beagle anchors in the cove at Woollya and finds the site deserted. Soon, a canoe comes out from shore, and Jemmy Button comes on board to visit.
Mar/16/1834:	Sir James Hector, geologist on the Palliser Expedition, born in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Mar/16/1834:	HMS Beagle anchors in Berkeley Sound, East Falkland Island, for the second time and Charles Darwin, accompanied by two gauchos, sets off to explore the interior.
Apr/13/1834:	HMS Beagle arrives at the mouth of the Santa Cruz River, east coast of Patagonia, and Captain FitzRoy sends an expedition to explore and map upstream.
Apr/27/1834:	While travelling in Patagonia up the Santa Cruz River, Charles Darwin shoots a condor and describes their life and feeding habits in detail.
Apr/29/1834:	The surveying party from HMS Beagle, including Charles Darwin, while travelling inland up the Santa Cruz River in Patagonia, had their first sight of the Andes off to the west.
Jun/01/1834:	HMS Beagle anchors in the bay of Port Famine, Tierra del Fuego, in the Magellan Strait.
Jun/08/1834:	HMS Beagle leaves Port Famine, Tierra del Fuego, and continues through the Magellan Strait.
Jun/10/1834:	HMS Beagle emerges from the Magellan Strait into the Pacific.
Jul/23/1834:	HMS Beagle arrives in Valparaiso, Chile, on the west coast of South America.
Aug/14/1834:	Charles Darwin sets off from Valparaiso, Chile, to explore and geologize along the lower slopes of the Andes.
Aug/17/1834:	Charles Darwin climbs the peak of Bell Mountain outside Valparaiso, Chile, at 6400 feet, and says he 'never enjoyed [a day] more thoroughly'.
Aug/27/1834:	Charles Darwin reaches Santiago, the capital of Chile, and has a very pleasant week's stay there.
Sep/05/1834:	On his overland return from Santiago to Valparaiso, Charles Darwin describes travelling across a hide suspension bridge over the Maypu River, Chile.
Sep/06/1834:	Charles Darwin visits the hot mineral springs of Cauquenes, Chile, a place he describes as 'a quiet, solitary spot, with a good deal of wild beauty'.
Nov/10/1834:	HMS Beagle leaves Valparaiso, Chile, and sails south to survey the coast of the island of Chiloe.
Dec/06/1834:	On the island of San Pedro, Charles Darwin kills a specimen of a new species of fox by walking up behind it and hitting it on the head with a geological hammer.
Dec/25/1834:	Charles Darwin and HMS Beagles crew forage for bird's eggs on Chronos Island off the Chilean coast in order to make a Christmas pudding.
Dec/28/1834:	Still surveying the southern coast of Chile, HMS Beagle picks up six deserters from an American whaling vessel.
Dec/30/1834:	HMS Beagle is at anchor near Tres Montes, Chile. Charles Darwin and some of the crew climb one of the peaks, 2400 feet high, which he was delighted to find was composed of granite.
Jan/15/1835:	While anchored at San Carlos, off Chiloe Island, Charles Darwin saw the volcano of Osorno in eruption. He found out later that Aconcagua and Coseguina, also in the Andes, erupted at the same time and there was an earthquake near Coseguina.
Feb/08/1835:	HMS Beagle arrives in Valdivia, Chile, and Charles Darwin is much struck by the apple orchards in the town.
Feb/20/1835:	The Concepción Earthquake, Chile, with an estimated magnitude of 8.2, levelled much of the town.
Feb/20/1835:	Charles Darwin experiences an earthquake in the vicinity of Valdivia, Chile. The quake causes extensive damage and aftershocks continue all evening.
Mar/04/1835:	HMS Beagle anchors at Concepcion, Chile, where Charles Darwin finds the town much damaged by the earthquake of February 20th and the 'great wave' (a tsunami) that followed.
Mar/18/1835:	Charles Darwin sets out from Santiago, Chile, to cross the Andes by means of the Portillo pass.
Mar/21/1835:	Charles Darwin crosses a high pass in the Peuquenes mountains and descends to an intermountain plateau.
Mar/22/1835:	Charles Darwin crosses the Portillo pass in the Andes and begins the descent of the east slopes of the Andes.
Mar/27/1835:	Charles Darwin reaches Mendoza, a town on the east side of the Andes.
Apr/05/1835:	Charles Darwin sets out from Mendoza to cross the Andes westwards, back to the Chilean coast, heading for the Uspallata pass.
Apr/10/1835:	Charles Darwin arrives back in Santiago, Chile, after his passage of the Andes. Of the 24 day trip he says 'never did I more deeply enjoy an equal space of time'.
May/14/1835:	While dining on shore in Coquimbo, northern Chile, Captain FitzRoy and Charles Darwin experience a 'sharp earthquake'.
Jul/11/1835:	HMS Beagle anchors in Iquique, Peru.
Jul/19/1835:	HMS Beagle arrives in the port of Lima, capital of Peru. Political upheavals prevent Charles Darwin from exploring much outside the capital, which perhaps accounts for his somewhat jaundiced and negative opinion of Peru.
Sep/07/1835:	HMS Beagle leaves the west coast of South America and heads towards the Galapagos Islands.
Sep/16/1835:	HMS Beagle reaches the Galapagos Islands and anchors near the northwest shore of Chatham Island. At his first sight of the islands, Charles Darwin comments on their inhospitable appearance and lack of plant and animal life.
Sep/17/1835:	Charles Darwin goes ashore and explores Chatham Island, one of the Galapagos Islands. He describes meeting giant tortoises on the island.
Sep/23/1835:	Charles Darwin explores Charles Island, one of the Galapagos Islands.
Sep/29/1835:	HMS Beagle proceeds to Albermarle Island, one of the Galapagos Islands.
Oct/08/1835:	HMS Beagle arrives at James Island, one of the Galapagos Islands. Charles Darwin, and some companions, camps onshore and explores for a week.
Oct/20/1835:	HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, leaves the Galapagos Islands and heads for Tahiti.
Nov/15/1835:	HMS Beagle arrives in Tahiti. Charles Darwin spends several days exploring inland.
Nov/16/1835:	Professor Henslow compiled and read some extracts from Charles Darwin's letters at a meeting of the Cambridge Philosophical Society.
Nov/18/1835:	Professor Sedgwick read extracts from Charles Darwin's letters to a meeting of the Geological Society, London, chaired by Charles Lyell.
Nov/18/1835:	Part of Captain FitzRoy's report on the Concepción earthquake of Chile was read to the Geological Society, London.
Nov/26/1835:	HMS Beagle leaves Tahiti and sets sail for New Zealand.
Dec/19/1835:	The crew of HMS Beagle catch their first sight of New Zealand.
Dec/21/1835:	HMS Beagle anchors off the coast of New Zealand in the Bay of Islands.
Dec/28/1835:	Sir Archibald Geikie, geologist, born in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Dec/30/1835:	HMS Beagle leaves New Zealand and sets sail for Australia.
Jan/12/1836:	HMS Beagle enters Sydney harbour, Australia. Charles Darwin goes ashore and is favourably impressed by the settlement.
Jan/16/1836:	In Australia, inland from Sydney, Charles Darwin goes kangaroo hunting but doesn't bag any. However, he does see some platypusses and is much struck with their appearance.
Feb/05/1836:	HMS Beagle anchors off Hobart, Tasmania.
Apr/01/1836:	HMS Beagle arrives in the Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean. Charles Darwin goes ashore to do some collecting and spends much time examining corals. He later writes a lengthy treatise on the development of various types of coral reef formations.
May/05/1836:	While staying on the island of Mauritius, Charles Darwin gets to ride on an elephant, the only one on the island. He was surprised at its noiseless footfalls.
Jul/08/1836:	HMS Beagle arrives at the island of St Helena.
Jul/19/1836:	HMS Beagle reaches Ascension Island. Charles Darwin examines the volcanic rocks of the island and describes the structure of volcanic bombs.
Aug/12/1836:	Contrary winds force HMS Beagle to make landfall in Pernambuco, Brazil, much to Charles Darwin's frustration since, like the rest of the crew, after almost five years away he is impatient to get home to England.
Oct/02/1836:	HMS Beagle arrives at Falmouth, England, and Charles Darwin steps ashore after almost five years away.
Oct/05/1836:	After almost five years away, Charles Darwin returns home to The Mount, Shrewsbury, to a warm welcome from his family.
Oct/29/1836:	Charles Darwin attends a social event at Charles Lyell's home and there Lyell introduced him to Richard Owen, who thereafter worked on many of the fossil specimens Darwin had brought back from South America.
Nov/01/1836:	Charles Darwin is elected a Fellow of the Geological Society, London.
Nov/17/1836:	Now moored at Woolwich Dockyard, HMS Beagle is decommissioned and the crew paid off and scattered.
Dec/08/1836:	Probable marriage date of Robert FitzRoy and his first wife, Mary Henrietta O'Brien.
Mar/07/1837:	Charles Darwin moves into lodgings in Great Malborough Street, London, where he lived for the next two years, working on his materials from the Beagle voyage.
Mar/14/1837:	Charles Darwin attends a meeting of the Zoological Society at which John Gould described the South American ostriches Darwin had brought back from the Beagle voyage and named a new species Rhea darwinii. Darwin added some comments on the birds' behaviour, based on field observations.
Feb/16/1838:	Charles Darwin is selected as Secretary of the Geological Society, London.
Dec/10/1838:	Death of Augustus Earle, the first artist on the Beagle voyage, in London, England, at the age of 45.
Sep/28/1838:	Charles Darwin reads An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Malthus, published in 1798. Malthus' ideas on the consequences of over-population helped Darwin consolidate his thinking on reproduction and speciation.
Sep/28/1838:	Entry in Charles Darwin's Notebook D in which the idea of natural selection is first mentions, stimulated by his reading of Thomas Malthus' work An Essay on the Principle of Population.
Nov/11/1838:	Charles Darwin proposes to his cousin, Emma Wedgwood, at her family home, Maer Hall, Staffordshire.
Dec/20/1838:	Louis Agassiz elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society, London.
Dec/31/1838:	Charles Darwin moves into 12 Upper Gower Street, London, preparing to start married life.
Jan/24/1839:	Charles Darwin elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London.
Jan/29/1839:	Marriage of Charles Darwin and Emma Wedgwood in Maer, Staffordshire, England.
Feb/07/1839:	The first part of Charles Darwin's paper on the parallel roads of Glen Roy is read to the Royal Society by the Secretary, Samuel Hunter Christie.
Feb/11/1839:	The newly-married Charles Darwin starts a notebook for household accounts, a practice he maintains from then on.
Feb/21/1839:	The second part of Charles Darwin's paper on the parallel roads of Glen Roy is read to the Royal Society by the Secretary, Samuel Hunter Christie.
Feb/28/1839:	The third and final part of Charles Darwin's paper on the parallel roads of Glen Roy is read to the Royal Society by the Secretary, Samuel Hunter Christie.
Mar/01/1839:	Charles Darwin is elected a Fellow of the Zoological Society, London.
May/27/1839:	Charles and Emma Darwin host a dinner at their home in Upper Gower Street. Among the guests were Professor Henslow and his wife and Alphonse de Candolle, a botanist and son of the Swiss botanist whose writings Darwin had studied.
Aug/28/1839:	Death of William Smith in Northampton, England, aged 70. Smith is known as 'The Father of English Geology'.
Dec/27/1839:	Birth of Charles and Emma Darwin's first child, a son they named William Erasmus.
Jul/28/1840:	Edward Drinker Cope, palaeontologist, born in Philadelphia, USA.
Nov/04/1840:	Louis Agassiz presents a paper at the first winter meeting of the Geological Society in London, outlining his ideas that glaciers once existed in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Following his presentation, William Buckland presented the first part of his paper on evidence for glaciation in Scotland.
Nov/18/1840:	The second part of William Buckland's paper on evidence for glaciation in Scotland was read at the Geological Society meeting, followed by the first part of Charles Lyell's paper also dealing with glaciation in Scotland.
Dec/04/1840:	The third part of William Buckland's paper and the second half of Charles Lyell's paper dealing with evidence for glaciation in Scotland are read at the Geological Society meeting.
Mar/02/1841:	Birth of Anne Elizabeth Darwin, Charles and Emma Darwin's second child and eldest daughter.
Jul/20/1841:	Charles Lyell left England for an extended visit to North America.
Sep/09/1841:	Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, botanist, died in Geneva, Switzerland, at the age of 63.
Jan/03/1842:	Charles Darwin finishes his book on coral reefs and sends the manuscript to his publishers, Smith and Elder.
Apr/14/1842:	Sir William Logan appointed first director of the Geological Survey of Canada.
Sep/14/1842:	Emma Darwin moves from London to Down House, Kent, the place that was to be their home from then on.
Sep/23/1842:	Charles and Emma Darwin's third child and second daughter, Mary Eleanor, was born in Down House, Kent. The baby only lived three weeks.
Oct/16/1842:	Charles and Emma Darwin's third child and second daughter, Mary Eleanor, died in Down House, Kent, after only living three weeks.
Dec/07/1842:	William Salmond, Anthony Thorpe and James Atkinson met in York, with the purpose of bringing together their fossil collections from Kirkdale Cave. The inauguration of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society is dated from this meeting.
Dec/14/1842:	Second meeting of the Yorkshire Philisophical Society. William Salmond, Anthony Thorpe and James Atkinson were joined by William Vernon. These four spearheaded the development of the Society.
Mar/24/1843:	Construction begins on a large bay window at the front of Down House, Charles Darwin's home in Kent.
Apr/07/1843:	Robert FitzRoy appointed Governor of New Zealand.
Jul/12/1843:	Death of Josiah Wedgwood II, the uncle and father-in-law of Charles Darwin, at Maer Hall in Staffordshire, England, at the age of 74.
Sep/25/1843:	Charles and Emma Darwin's fourth child and third daughter, Henrietta Emma 'Etty' Darwin, was born in Down House, Kent.
Sep/25/1843:	Thomas C. Chamberlain, especially known for studies in Quaternary geology, born in Mattoon, Illinois, USA.
Dec/23/1843:	Robert FitzRoy, accompanied by his wife and children and father-in-law, arrives in Auckland, New Zealand, to take up his governorship.
Jun/19/1844:	Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, naturalist and founder of the menagerie at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, died in Paris, France, at the age of 72.
Jul/05/1844:	Charles Darwin finishes his 'species sketch', known as the 1844 essay, outlining the ideas that formed the foundation of 'Origin of Species'. He set the essay aside, afraid to publish it, and instead wrote a weird letter to Emma telling her what to do with the essay in the event of his death.
Jul/09/1845:	Charles and Emma Darwin's fifth child and second son, George Howard, was born in Down House, Kent. He later became a distinguished geophysicist.
Oct/01/1845:	Robert FitzRoy receives the official communication terminating his appointment as Governor of New Zealand, after two years of troubles and conflict.
Sep/11/1846:	William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) elected to Chair of Natural Philosophy at Glasgow University, a post he held until 1999.
Oct/01/1846:	Francis Beaufort, head of the Hydrographic Office of the British Admiralty, finally retires from the Royal Navy at the age of 72.
Oct/01/1846:	Charles Darwin turns his attention to barnacles, beginning with a specimen that he collected on the Beagle voyage.
Mar/09/1847:	Mary Anning, fossil collector, died in Lyme Regis, Dorset, England, aged 47.
Apr/22/1847:	Joseph Dalton Hooker, botanist, plant collector, and friend of Charles Darwin, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London. Hooker was a botanist on HMS Erebus for James Clark Ross' s expedition to Antarctica.
Jun/09/1847:	Death of John Hailstone, Woodwardian Professor of Geology at Cambridge and original member of the Geological Society, in Trumpington, near Cambridge, England, at the age of 87.
Jul/08/1847:	Charles and Emma Darwin's sixth child and fourth daughter, Elizabeth 'Bessy' Darwin, born at Down House, Kent.
May/18/1848:	Gideon Mantell reads a further paper on Iguanodon before the Royal Society, presenting his conclusions from examination of a recently-found partial lower jaw.
Aug/16/1848:	Charles and Emma Darwin's seventh child and third son, Francis, born at Down House, Kent. Francis became a distinguished botanist and also edited his father's letters for publication.
Nov/13/1848:	Death of Robert Waring Darwin, physician, financier, and father of Charles, in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, at the age of 82.
Jun/01/1849:	George Stokes, physicist and mathematician, appointd the Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, England. He held the chair for fifty-four years, longer than any other holder.
Aug/01/1849:	Birth of George Mercer Dawson in Pictou, Nova Scotia. Dawson was the geologist with the International Boundary Commission and later Director of the Geological Survey of Canada.
Nov/30/1849:	The Royal Medal of the Royal Society, London, is awarded to Gideon Mantell for his work in palaeontology, notably on the discovery and description of Iguanodon.
Jan/15/1850:	Charles and Emma Darwin's eighth child and fourth son born at Down House, Kent.
Feb/12/1850:	William Morris Davis, geomorphologist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Mar/31/1850:	Charles Doolittle Walcott, invertebrate palaeontologist associated with discovery of the fossils of the Burgess Shale, born in New York Mills, New York, USA.
Jun/15/1850:	Charles Hazelius Sternberg, fossil collector, born near Cooperstown, New York, USA.
Apr/23/1851:	Death of Charles Darwin's daughter, Annie, at the age of 10, in Malvern, England. Darwin was deeply distressed by her death.
May/13/1851:	Charles and Emma Darwin's ninth child and fifth son, Horace, born at Down House, Kent. He became a distinguished civil engineer and manufacturer of scientific instruments.
Jun/05/1851:	Sir William Logan, William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin), George Stokes, Captain Robert Fitzroy and Thomas Henry Huxley are all elected Fellows of the Royal Society, London, on the same day.
Apr/04/1852:	Arthur Philemon Coleman, especially known for studies in Quaternary geology, born in Lachute, Quebec, Canada.
Nov/10/1852:	Gideon Mantell, the avocational palaeontologist who first described Iguanodon, died in London, England.
Sep/14/1853:	Hugh Strickland, natural historian, killed by stepping into the path of a train while examining a section in a railway cutting, near Clarborough, Nottinghamshire, England, at the age of 42.
Dec/31/1853:	The Dinner in the Iguanodon: Distinguished guests dined inside the reconstruction of an Iguanodon, designed by Richard Owen, which was being built for display at the Crystal Palace gardens in Sydenham, England.
Apr/19/1854:	Robert Jameson, natural historian who held the chair of natural history at Edinburgh University for more than 50 years, died in Edinburgh, Scotland, at the age of 79.
Apr/22/1854:	Robert FitzRoy marries his second wife, Maria Isabella Smyth.
Sep/09/1854:	In his journal, Charles Darwin records that he finally packed up all his barnacle specimens and began going through his notes for 'species theory'.
Nov/18/1854:	Edward Forbes, natural historian and successor to Robert Jameson, died in Edinburgh, Scotland, at the age of 39.
Apr/02/1855:	On his way to the Middle East, George Bellas Greenough died in Naples, Italy, aged 77. Greenough was a geologist, and was a founding member and first president of the Geological Society.
Apr/13/1855:	Sir Henry de la Beche, geologist and first director of the British Geological Survey, died in England at the age of 59.
Apr/16/1856:	In his journal, Charles Lyell records a visit to Charles Darwin at Down House. He records that they discussed 'the formation of species by natural selection', an idea that he finds troubling.
Apr/26/1856:	Charles Darwin invites some scientific friends to stay at Down House for the weekend: Thomas Wollaston, Joseph Hooker, and Thomas Huxley. They spend the weekend theorizing and discussing biological ideas about species. It was shortly after this weekend that he started finally writing the book that became Origin of Species.
May/14/1856:	In his diary, Charles Darwin records that he began work on his 'Species Sketch', which would eventually become The Origin of Species.
Aug/14/1856:	William Buckland, geologist and clergyman, died in Clapham, England, aged 72.
Dec/06/1856:	Charles and Emma Darwin's tenth and last child and sixth son, Charles Waring, born at Down House, Kent.
Aug/08/1857:	Henry Fairfield Osborn, palaeontologist, born in Fairfield, Connecticut, USA.
Aug/12/1857:	William Daniel Conybeare, geologist and clergyman, died in Itchenstoke, Hampshire, aged 70. Conybeare did important work in palaeontology and descriptive geology. He was a supporter of diluvialism and an opponent of Lyell's ideas.
Sep/05/1857:	Charles Darwin writes a letter to Asa Gray in which he outlines his theory of natural selection.
Dec/17/1857:	Death of Francis Beaufort, naval officer and later head of the Hydrographic Office of the British Admiralty, in Hove, Sussex, England, at the age of 83.
Jun/10/1858:	Robert Brown, botanist and microscopist, died in London, England, at the age of 84. Brown travelled to Australia with the Flinders expedition and subsequently compiled a magisterial flora of the continent. He was also the first to see and report on 'Brownian Motion', from his observations of pollen grains under the microscope.
Jun/18/1858:	Charles Darwin receives a letter from Alfred Russel Wallace with his essay on the emergence of species which Wallace hoped Darwin would pass along to Charles Lyell for publication in the Linnean Society's journal. Darwin is devastated to realize that Wallace has had almost exactly the same ideas as himself. Darwin writes to Lyell about his anguish at receiving this essay.
Jun/28/1858:	Death of Charles Darwin's tenth child and sixth son, Charles Waring, from scarlet fever, at the age of eighteen months, just two days before essays on natural selection by Darwin and Wallace were to be read before the Linnean Society.
Jul/01/1858:	Alfred Russel Wallace's paper ('On the tendency of varieties to depart indefinitely from the original type') and extracts from Charles Darwin's writings on natural selection were read to a Linnean Society meeting. This was the first public airing of Darwin's ideas on this topic.
Mar/10/1859:	Frank Leverett, glacial geologist, born in Denmark, Iowa, USA.
Oct/01/1859:	Charles Darwin finishes going through the proofs of the first edition of The Origin of Species.
Oct/25/1859:	Wreck of the Royal Charter, a passenger ship, off the coast of Anglesey, North Wales, with the loss of 400 lives. This was the impetus for setting up weather recording stations and developing maritime forecasts. Robert FitzRoy set up the first eighteen stations.
Nov/24/1859:	Publication day for Charles Darwin's book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, with 1250 copies printed.
Jan/07/1860:	The first edition having sold out, the second edition (3,000 copies) of Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life was published.
Jun/29/1860:	Robert FitzRoy presents a paper on storms at the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Oxford and stays overnight to hear the presentations next day.
Jun/30/1860:	The famous Oxford 'debate' between Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, and Thomas Huxley over Darwin's 'Origin of Species'.
Feb/19/1861:	Death of Syms Covington, in Pambula, New South Wales, Australia, at the age of 48. Covington was Charles Darwin's servant and assistant during the Beagle voyage. He later emigrated to Australia.
May/16/1861:	Death of John Henslow, Cambridge academic and Charles Darwin's mentor, in Hitcham, England, at the age of 65.
May/15/1862:	Publication day for Charles Darwin's book on Fertilisation of the Orchids.
Jan/06/1864:	Death of John Clements Wickham, Lieutenant on the second Beagle voyage, in the south of France, at the age of 65.
Mar/21/1864:	Luke Howard died in London, England, at the age of 91. Howard devised a classification scheme for clouds which, with some modification, is still in use today.
May/23/1864:	Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, palaeontologist best known for his involvement with the Piltdown Man controversy, born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, England.
Jul/11/1864:	Birth of Charles Dawson at Fulkeith Hall, Lancashire, England. Dawson was am amateur antiquary, famous as the finder of the Piltdown materials, and later identified as the most likely perpetrator of the hoax.
Nov/30/1864:	Charles Darwin awarded the Copley Medal, its highest honour, by the Royal Society at its anniversary meeting in London.
Apr/30/1865:	Robert FitzRoy, the Captain of HMS Beagle, commits suicide and dies at the age of 59.
Jun/10/1865:	Sir Archibald Geikie elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London.
Jun/07/1866:	Sir James Hector, geologist on the Palliser Expedition, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London.
Aug/25/1867:	Michael Faraday, chemist and physicist, died at Hampton Court, Surrey, England, at the age of 75.
Dec/11/1868:	William Parks, dinosaur palaeontologist who worked extensively in western Canada, born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Feb/10/1869:	Publication of fifth edition of Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.
Nov/30/1869:	Sir William Logan retires from the Geological Survey of Canada.
Mar/17/1871:	Robert Chambers, revealed after his death as the author of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), died in St Anndrews, Scotland, at the age of 68.
May/11/1871:	Death of John Herschel, astronomer and mathematician, in Collingwood, Kent, England, at the age of 79.
Oct/22/1871:	Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, geologist, died in London, England, aged 79. His name is associated with a graptolite, Didymograptus murchisoni, one of the important biostratigraphic markers for the Ordovician.
Feb/19/1872:	Publication of the sixth edition of Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, the last edition revised by Darwin.
Jan/27/1873:	Adam Sedgwick, Woodwardian professor of geology at University of Cambridge for 55 years (1818 until his death), died in Cambridge, England, aged 87.
Feb/12/1873;	Barnum Brown, fossil collector, born in Carbondale, Kansas, USA
Dec/06/1873:	Louis Agassiz's last day of work at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, which he founded and nurtured. The Museum is now part of Harvard University. Agassiz died eight days later.
Dec/14/1873:	Louis Agassiz died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, aged 66. Agassiz was a prominent geologist and palaeontologist in the USA. He was an advocate of catastrophism, but also influential in elucidating the role of glaciation as a landscape process. Glacial Lake Agassiz was named after him in 1879.
Jun/04/1874:	Alfred Richard Cecil Selwyn, geologist and Director of the Geological Survey of Canada, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, England.
Oct/21/1874:	Birth of Charles R. Knight, artist best known for paintings of dinosaurs, in Brooklyn, USA.
Feb/22/1875:	Sir Charles Lyell, author of Principles of Geology, died in London, aged 77.
Jun/22/1875:	Sir William Logan, first director of the Geological Survey of Canada, died in Cilgerran, Pembrokeshire, Wales, aged 77.
Aug/21/1878:	Death of Conrad Martens, the second artist on the Beagle voyage, in North Sydney, Australia, at the age of 77.
Mar/14/1879:	Albert Einstein born in Ulm, Germany.
Nov/05/1879:	James Clerk Maxwell, theoretical physicist and mathematician, best known for Maxwell's equations, died in Cambridge, England, at the age of 48.
Apr/08/1880:	Death of William Darwin Fox at Sandown, Isle of Wight, England, at the age of 74. Fox was second cousin to Charles Darwin and the two men were close friends when at Cambridge University. He became a clergyman and naturalist.
Nov/01/1880:	Birth of Alfred Wegener in Berlin, Germany. Wegener published the idea of 'continental drift' in 1915, an idea that took decades to become accepted.
Feb/03/1881:	John Gould, ornithologist who identified the bird specimens that Charles Darwin collected on the Beagle expedition, died in England at the age of 76.
May/01/1881:	Birth of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, in Orcines, France. A Jesuit priest, mystic, and philospher, as well as a geologist and paleontologist, de Chardin is best known for his association with the Peking Man finds in Zhoukoudian, China.
Apr/19/1882:	Charles Darwin died at his home, Down House, Kent, England, at the age of 73.
Apr/26/1882:	Funeral service for Charles Darwin held in Westminster Abbey, London.
May/10/1883:	First record of earth tremors that were precursors to the massive eruption of Krakatoa in August later that year.
May/22/1883:	First reports of volcanic activity at Krakatoa, the precursors to the massive explosion in August later that year.
Aug/11/1883:	After some worrisome volcanic activity in May, Captain H. J. G. Ferzenaar, of the Dutch army, is sent to survey and investigate Krakatoa island. He produces the last map of the island before the massive explosion later that August.
Aug/26/1883:	The final stages of Krakatoa's eruption begin, with clouds of ash and pumice emitted in explosive eruptions, causing darkened skies. The seas are disturbed with waves making sailing difficult and causing damage along shorelines.
Aug/27/1883:	Explosive eruption of Krakatoa volcano, Indonesia. The eruption destroyed the volcanic cone and is thought to have been the loudest sound in modern times.
Dec/13/1883:	First scientific presentation on the effects of the Krakatoa eruption. This took the form of a paper, entitled Notes on a Series of Barometrical Disturbances which Passed over Europe between the 27th and the 31st of August, 1883 and was made to the Royal Society, London, by Robert H. Scott of the Meteorological Council. He drew attention to the worldwide significance of the eruption.
Jan/26/1884:	Roy Chapman Andrews, adventurer and later Director of the American Museum of Natural History, born in Beloit, Wisconsin, USA.
Jun/09/1884:	Joseph Burr Tyrrell records his finding of dinosaur bones exposed along the Red Deer River valley, Alberta.
Aug/31/1886:	The Charleston Earthquake, with an estimated magnitude between 6.6 and 7.3, caused widespread damage in South Carolina and surrounding states.
Jan/11/1887:	Birth of Aldo Leopold, ecologist and environmentalist, best known as the writer of A Sand County Almanac, in Burlington, Iowa, USA.
Jan/30/1888:	Death of Asa Gray, botanist, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, at the age of 77. Gray was one of Darwin's leading adherents in the US.
Aug/23/1888:	Philip Henry Gosse, naturalist and writer, died at St. Mary Church, Devon, England, at the age of 77. Gosse is best known as the writer of Omphalos, an attempt to reconcile a literalist interpretation of scripture with newly-emerging ideas about the age of the earth.
Oct/11/1889:	James Joule, physicist, died in Sale, Cheshire, England, at the age of 70.
Jan/01/1890:	Death of Bartholomew James Sulivan, naval officer and Lieutenant on the second Beagle voyage, in Bournemouth, England, at the age of 79.
Jan/14/1890:	Arthur Holmes, geologist known especially for his work on geochronology, born in Gateshead, northern England.
Dec/15/1890:	Death of James Croll in Perth, Scotland, at the age of 69.
Apr/30/1891:	Joseph Leidy, dinosaur palaeontologist, died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, at the age of 67.
Jun/02/1891:	Death of Hensleigh Wedgwood, Emma Darwin's brother, at the age of 78.
Jun/04/1891:	George Mercer Dawson elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London.
Dec/17/1891:	Birth of Paul B. Sears, ecologist and writer best known for Deserts on the March, in Bucyrus, Ohio, USA.
Apr/04/1893:	Death of Alphonse Pyrame de Candolle, a botanist and son of Augustin de Candolle, in Geneva, Switzerland, at the age of 86.
Sep/01/1893:	Leonard Jenyns, John Henslow's brother-in-law and the naturalist who described the fish specimens Darwin brought back from the Beagle voyage, died in Bath, England, at the age of 93.
Jun/01/1893:	Alfred Russel Wallace elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London.
Mar/08/1894:	T. C. Chamberlain writes a covering letter to the Director of the USGS to accompany Warren Upham's report on the character and extent of Glacial Lake Agassiz.
Dec/28/1894:	Alfred Romer, palaeontologist, born in White Plains, New York, USA.
Jun/29/1895:	Thomas Henry Huxley, nicknamed 'Darwin's Bulldog' for his spirited defence of the ideas in 'Origin of Species', died in Eastbourne, England, aged 70.
Oct/07/1896:	Emma Darwin, wife of Charles Darwin, died in Down House, Kent, England, at the age of 88.
Apr/12/1897:	Edward Drinker Cope, palaeontologist, died in Philadelphia, aged 56.
Mar/18/1899:	Charles Othniel Marsh, palaeontologist, died in New Haven, Connecticut, USA, aged 67.
Mar/02/1901:	Death of George Mercer Dawson in Ottawa, Ontario, at the age of 51. Dawson was the geologist with the International Boundary Commission and later Director of the Geological Survey of Canada.
Jun/16/1902:	George Gaylord Simpson, palaeontologist, born in Chicago, USA.
Oct/19/1902:	Alfred Richard Cecil Selwyn, geologist and Director of the Geological Survey of Canada, died in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, at the age of 78.
Feb/01/1903:	George Stokes, physicist and mathematician, died in Cambridge, England, at the age of 83.
Apr/18/1906:	The massive San Francisco earthquake (with an estimated magnitude 7.8) and subsequent fires killed at least 700 people and destroyed much of the city.
Nov/05/1907:	Death of Sir James Hector, geologist with the Palliser Expedition, in Wellington, New Zealand, at the age of 73.
Dec/17/1907:	Death of William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, physicist and engineer, in Largs, Ayrshire, Scotland, at the age of 83. In earth sciences, Kelvin is best known for his 1862 estimate of the age of the earth at 100 million years.
Oct/24/1908:	Birth of John Tuzo Wilson, Canadian geophysicist, in Ottawa, Ontario. In the 1960s, Wilson was a major contributor to the development of ideas on plate tectonics.
May/05/1910:	Arthur Philemon Coleman, geologist, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London.
Jul/12/1910:	Record-breaking extreme rainfall of 33 inches (830 mm) fell in 24 hours at Cherrapunji, northeast India. This record stood until the Maharashtra rainfall event of July 2005.
Dec/10/1911:	Joseph Dalton Hooker, botanist, plant collector, and friend of Charles Darwin, died in Sunningdale, Berkshire, England, at the age of 94. Hooker was a botanist on HMS Erebus for James Clark Ross' s expedition to Antarctica.
Jan/06/1912:	Alfred Wegener makes a presentation to the Geological Society in Frankfurt, Germany, in which he proposes that, rather than being fixed, continents have moved over time. This was the first public presentation of his 'continental drift' ideas.
Feb/15/1912:	Date of letter from Charles Dawson to Sir Arthur Smith Woodward announcing find of possible human skull fragment, and initiating the Piltdown Man controvesy.
May/23/1912:	Charles Dawson visited Sir Arthur Smith Woodward at the British Museum and shows him several skull fragments, the initial part of the Piltdown find.
Jun/02/1912:	Sir Arthur Smith Woodward pays his first visit to the Barkham Manor gravel pit, in the company of Charles Dawson. Also present was Teilhard de Chardin, then attending a Jesuit seminary in Sussex. Charles Dawson found another skull fragment and de Chardin found a Stegodon tooth.
Jun/24/1912:	While working at the Barkham Manor pit with Woodward, Charles Dawson finds a piece of lower jaw.
Nov/21/1912:	News of the Piltdown finds is reported in the Manchester Guardian, the first public report of the material.
Dec/02/1912:	Sir Arthur Keith, anatomist at the Hunterian Museum, visits Sir Arthur Smith Woodward at the British Museum to examine the Piltdown materials.
Dec/18/1912:	Meeting of the Geological Society at which the Piltdown finds were first shown, described and discussed.
Jul/12/1913:	A large group of geologists from London were taken on a field trip to the Barkham Manor pit by Charles Dawson and Sir Arthur Smith Woodward.
Aug/09/1913:	Excavation continues at the Barkham Manor pit. Charles Dawson finds some small bone fragments, later identifed as part of the nasal structure of the Piltdown skull. Also in attendance was Teilhard de Chardin.
Aug/11/1913:	Showdown between Sir Arthur Keith and Sir Arthur Smith Woodward. Both show their reconstructions of the Piltdown skull to delegates attending the International Congress of Medicine in Lomdon. Their concensus is that Keith's reconstruction, giving a larger brain capacity, is more likely correct.
Aug/30/1913:	While looking through the spoil heaps at the Barkham Manor pit, Teilhard de Chardin finds a canine tooth, which was added to the reconstruction of the Piltdown skull. Woodward and Dawson were also present for this find.
Oct/16/1913:	Sir Arthur Keith's article on the Piltdown skull and brain cast, in which he criticizes Sir Arthur Smith Woodward's reconstruction, is published in the journal Nature.
Nov/07/1913:	Alfred Russel Wallace died at Broadstone, Dorset, aged 90. Wallace independently derived the idea of 'natural selection'.
Sep/08/1914:	Death of William Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin's eldest child, in Sedbergh, Cumbria, England, at the age of 74.
Dec/02/1914:	Charles Dawson and Sir Arthur Keith Woodward present a paper at a Geological Society meeting in which they describe finding a large bone implement at the Barkham Manor gravel pit in the 1914 summer's field season.
Aug/10/1916:	Death of Charles Dawson in Lewes, Sussex, England, at the age of 52. Dawson was am amateur antiquary, famous as the finder of the Piltdown materials, and later identified as the most likely perpetrator of the hoax.
Feb/28/1917:	Sir Arthur Smith Woodward gives a presentation to the Geological Society on a second group of human remains, comprising skull fragments and a tooth, found by Charles Dawson (who is now dead) on the Sheffield Park estate, Sussex.
Aug/09/1919:	Death of Ernst Haeckel, biologist who strongly supported Darwin's work, in Jena, Germany, at the age of 85.
Sep/22/1922:	Hot enough to fry an egg? Indisputably! A sizzling 58°C is recorded at Al Aziziyah, Libya, and remains the highest temperature so far recorded.
Sep/01/1923:	The Great Kanto Earthquake, with an estimated magnitude of about 8.0, devastated large areas of the island of Honshu, southern Japan, and caused more than 100,000 deaths, especially in Tokyo which was swept by massive fires following the 'quake.
Nov/10/1924:	Sir Archibald Geikie, geologist, died in Haslemere, Surrey, England, at the age of 88.
Sep/19/1925:	Charles and Emma Darwin's seventh child and third son, Francis, died in Cambridge, England, at the age of 77. Francis became a distinguished botanist and also edited his father's letters for publication.
Feb/09/1927:	Charles Doolittle Walcott, invertebrate palaeontologist associated with discovery of the fossils of the Burgess Shale, died in Washington, DC, USA, at the age of 76.
Jun/29/1927:	First report, made by local fisherman, of signs of a new volcano growing within the caldera left by the eruption of Krakatoa.
Sep/04/1927:	Richard Chorley, quantitative physical geographer, born in Minehead, Somerset, England.
Dec/17/1927:	Charles and Emma Darwin's fourth child and third daughter, Henrietta Emma 'Etty' Darwin, died in Burrows Hill, Gomshall, Surrey, England, at the age of 84.
Sep/22/1928:	Charles and Emma Darwin's ninth child and fifth son, Horace, died in Cambridge, England, at the age of 77. He became a distinguished civil engineer and manufacturer of scientific instruments.
Nov/15/1928:	Thomas C. Chamberlain, especially known for studies in Quaternary geology, died in Chicago, Illinois, USA, at the age of 85.
Jun/10/1929:	Edward O. Wilson, famous for his writings on biodiversity, born in Birmingham, Alabama, USA.
Aug/11/1930:	Anak Krakatoa, the 'son' or 'child' of Krakatoa, a new volcano within the caldera, emerges and remains above sea-level. The volcano has continued to grow in subsequent years and remains highly active.
Nov/01/1930:	Alfred Wegener and a companion, Rasmus Villumsen, set off from camp on the Greenland ice-cap, heading for the coast. Wegener's body is found next spring. He died from an apparent heart-attack, at the age of 50.
Mar/08/1931:	John McPhee, journalist best known for his books about geology and geologists in western North America, born in Princeton, New Jersey, USA.
Feb/05/1934:	William Morris Davis, geomorphologist, died in Pasadena, California, at the age of 83.
Nov/06/1935:	Henry Fairfield Osborn, palaeontologist, died at the family estate of Castle Rock, in Garrison, New York, USA, at the age of 78.
Aug/15/1936:	Posthumous publication of the first volume of Henry Fairfield's work on The Proboscidea: A Monograph of the Discovery, Evolution, Migration and Extinction of the Mastodonts and Elephants of the World.
Oct/03/1936:	William Parks, dinosaur palaeontologist who worked extensively in western Canada, died in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, at the age of 67.
Jul/23/1938:	Stone commemorating the Piltdown find was unveiled by Sir Arthur Keith. The memorial stone is located in the grounds of Barkham Manor at the place where the finds were made.
Dec/22/1938:	Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, curator at the East London Museum, South Africa, finds an unusual fish in the catch of a local fisherman. The fish is later identified as a Coelacanth, thought to have been extinct since the end of the Cretaceous, about 65 million years. The fish was later named Latimeria chalumnae, in her honour.
Feb/26/1939:	Arthur Philemon Coleman, especially known for studies in Quaternary geology, died at the age of 86.
Mar/26/1941:	Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist and writer, born in Nairobi, Kenya.
Sep/10/1941:	Stephen J. Gould, palaeontologist, biologist, and essayist born in New York.
Jan/08/1942:	Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist and cosmologist, born in Oxford, England.
Mar/26/1943:	Charles and Emma Darwin's eighth child and fourth son, Leonard, died at West Hoathly, near Forest Row, Sussex, England, at the age of 93.
Jun/21/1943:	Charles Hazelius Sternberg, fossil collector, died in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, at the age of 93.
Nov/15/1943:	Frank Leverett, glacial geologist, died in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, at the age of 84.
Sep/02/1944:	Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, palaeontologist best known for his involvement with the Piltdown Man controversy, died in Heyward's Heath, Sussex, England, at the age of 81.
Feb/03/1947:	A record for coldest North American temperature is set Snag, Yukon, Canada, when a bone-chilling -63°C was recorded.
Apr/21/1948:	Death of Aldo Leopold, ecologist and environmentalist, best known as the writer of A Sand County Almanac, in Wisconsin, USA, at the age of 61.
Apr/15/1953:	Death of Charles R. Knight, artist best known for paintings of dinosaurs, in Manhattan, USA, at the age of 78.
Jul/30/1953:	After a conversation with Kenneth Oakley at a conference banquet in London, Joseph Weiner drives home to Oxford full of renewed doubts about the authenticity of the Piltdown finds.
Jul/31/1953:	In his lab at Oxford, Joseph Weiner re-examines the casts of the Piltdown materials and notes that the teeth appeared to have been modified. He begins some experiements to see if he can reproduce materials that look like those of Piltdown, especially in terms of staining and the appearance of fossilization.
Aug/06/1953:	Wilfrid Le Gros Clark and Joseph Weiner from Oxford University telephone Kenneth Oakley at the Natural History Museum to tell him of the evidence that Piltdown is a fraud.
Nov/20/1953:	Publication of The Solution of the Piltdown Problem by the Natural History Museum, London. The six-page document by Joseph Weiner, Kenneth Oakley, and Wilfrid Le Gros Clark, outlined the criteria by which they declared the Piltdown finds a fraud.
Nov/21/1953:	The Times and other newspapers report on the Piltdown hoax, exactly 41 years to the day after the first media reports of the initial finds.
Nov/24/1953:	Joseph Weiner and Kenneth Oakley visit Sir Arthur Keith, now living in retirement in Downe, Kent, to explain their results to him and get his reaction to news of the Piltdown fraud.
Apr/10/1955:	Death of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, in New York, USA, at the age of 73. A Jesuit priest, mystic, and philospher, as well as a geologist and paleontologist, de Chardin is best known for his association with the Peking Man finds in Zhoukoudian, China.
Apr/18/1955:	Albert Einstein died in Princeton, New Jersey, USA, at the age of 76.
Mar/11/1960:	Roy Chapman Andrews, adventurer and later Director of the American Museum of Natural History, died in California, USA, at the age of 76.
Feb/05/1963:	Barnum Brown, fossil collector, died in New York, USA, at the age of 89.
Mar/27/1964:	Magnitude 9.2 'Good Friday' earthquake affects southern Alaska, especially the area around Anchorage and Kodiak Island. The earthquake is associated with tsunamis that hit the southern Alaskan coast and areas as far south as Oregon and cause much loss of life. This is so far (2006) the worst earthquake to be documented (i.e., actually observed and recorded) in North America and the third most severe on record.
Jul/24/1965:	Publication of 'A new class of faults and their bearing on continental drift' by John Tuzo Wilson, in Nature. This paper is recognized as one of the foundation publications of plate tectonics.
Sep/20/1965:	Arthur Holmes, geologist known especially for his work on geochronology, died in England, at the age of 75.
Mar/18/1967:	The oil tanker 'Torrey Canyon' ran aground off the SW coast of Britain. Oil slicks subsequently fouled Cornish beaches. This disaster raised awareness of the perils of tanker transport of oil.
Mar/21/1968:	John Tuzo Wilson elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, London.
Jul/20/1969:	Apollo 11 mission reaches orbit around the moon and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land on the surface and become the first humans to walk on the moon's surface.
Nov/05/1973:	Alfred Romer, palaeontologist, died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, at the age of 68.
Jul/28/1976:	Magnitude 7.8 Great Tangshan Earthquake affected large areas of Hebei and northern China. The death toll is estimated at around 250,000, making this probably the deadliest earthquake in the 20th century.
May/18/1980:	Explosive eruption of Mount St Helens, Washington. Volcanic ash spreads across the inland Pacific Northwest.
Oct/06/1984:	George Gaylord Simpson, palaeontologist, died in Tucson, USA.
Oct/16/1987:	A massive and intense windstorm, called a hurricane, swept across southern England, damaging ancient trees and historic buildings, and killing 10 people.
Mar/24/1989:	The tanker ship, 'Exxon Valdez', hits a reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska, and spills more than 11 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean. This is the worst oil spill in US history. Environmental damage is severe and widespread.
Oct/14/1989:	Magnitude 7.1 Loma Prieta or 'World Series' earthquake affects northern California.
Apr/30/1990:	Death of Paul B. Sears, ecologist and writer best known for Deserts on the March, in Taos, New Mexico, USA, at the age of 98.
Jun/15/1991:	Eruption of Mount Pinatubo, on the island of Luzon, the Philippines. This was the second largest eruption of the twentieth century.
Apr/15/1993:	Death of John Tuzo Wilson, Canadian geophysicist, at the age of 84. In the 1960s, Wilson was a major contributor to the development of ideas on plate tectonics.
Jan/17/1994:	Occurrence of the Northridge Earthquake, a magnitude 6.7 quake, which caused extensive damage in the Los Angeles area.
Jan/17/1995:	Occurrence of the Great Hanshin or Kobe Earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.2, caused massive damage and more than 6,000 deaths on Honshu, southern Japan.
Jun/28/1997:	Occurrence of the San Bernadino Earthquake, a magnitude 4.2 quake along the San Jacinto fault in California.
Jan/05/1998:	First day of the great Ice Storm that swept across eastern Ontario and Quebec and into the Maritimes. The storm lasted for five days, did widespread damage, downed trees and power lines, and knocked out power across much of eastern Canada.
Jan/18/2000:	The Tagish Lake Meteorite fell to earth across northwestern Canada. Fragments were collected from a frozen lake surface by a man from Atlin, British Columbia. The meteorite is of exceptional scientific interest because of its lack of contamination by earth materials and its composition, a carbonaceous chondrite.
Jun/16/2001:	Geoscience in the spotlight! Ceremonies to celebrate the completion of stabilization of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The most prominent member of the team is Prof. John Burland of Imperial College, London, an expert in soil mechanics. He directed the work to reduce the angle of lean of the Tower and thereby ensure that it continues to stand.
Feb/04/2002:	A sea area off the coast of Finisterre was re-named 'FitzRoy', after Robert FitzRoy, in recognition of his role in developing maritime forecasts.
May/12/2002:	Richard Chorley, quantitative physical geographer, died in Cambridge, England, at the age of 74.
May/20/2002:	Stephen J. Gould, palaeontologist, biologist, and essayist, dies at the age of 60.
Apr/01/2003:	Publication of Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester.
Dec/26/2003:	Magnitude 6.6 Bam Earthquake devastates the city of Bam, central Iran. Damage was extensive because most of the city, including the Bam Citadel, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was built of adobe or mud-brick, which essentially disintegrated. Death toll is estimated to be around 30,000 people.
Dec/26/2004:	An undersea earthquake, magnitude 9.3, centred off Indonesia generated a tsunami which caused massive loss of life in countries bordering the Indian Ocean, including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand. Death toll is estimated at 300,000.
Jul/26/2005:	Record-breaking extreme heavy rainfall of 37.4 inches (944 mm) fell in 24 hours in Maharashtra State, including the city of Mumbai (Bombay), western India, causing widespread flooding and more than 300 deaths.
Aug/29/2005:	Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast of the southern US, causing immense devastation and loss of life, especially in New Orleans.
Oct/08/2005:	Magnitude 7.6 Kashmir Earthquake affected large areas of northern Pakistan, producing a death toll of over 70,000 people. Rescue efforts were hampered by subsequent landslides which blocked road access.
Jun/23/2006:	Death of Harriet, a giant Galapagos tortoise (Geochelone nigra), once thought to be one of the three collected by Charles Darwin during his visit to the islands in 1835. Although the link to Darwin may be tenuous, Harriet was probably the oldest living animal, at about 175 years at her death in 2006. She lived in the Australia Zoo in Queensland, Australia, for many years.
Aug/15/2007:	Magnitude 8.0 Peru Earthquake affected coastal Peru, especially the town of Pisco, which is estimated to have been 80% destroyed.
May/02/2008:	Cyclone Nargis moved inland from the Bay of Bengal and swept across Burma, causing widespread loss of life and devastation.
May/12/2008:	Magnitude 7.9 Sichuan or Wenchuan earthquake affects large areas of southcentral China near Chengdu.
Nov/20/2008:	A large meteorite streaked across the sky of central Alberta. Pieces of the meteorite were later found in Buzzard Coulee, Saskatchewan, southeast of Lloydminster.
Jan/12/2010:	Magnitude 7.0 struck the Caribbean, and particularly affected the island of Hispaniola, especially the western part, the country of Haiti. The quake caused tremendous loss of life, with an estimated 150,000 people killed in Haiti.