📗 Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882) was a British naturalist whose theory or evolution by natural selection became the basis of modern theories of evolution. Darwin shocked the Victorians by suggesting that humans and animals shared the same ancestry. The Origin of Species is his most famous work. His five-year voyage on HMS Beagle established him as an eminent geologist whose observations and theories supported Charles Lyell's uniformitarian ideas, and publication of his journal of the voyage made Darwin famous as a popular author.