British naturalist, who revolutionized the science of biology by his demonstration of evolution by natural selection. Darwin's "On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favored races in the struggle of life", was published on November 24, 1859, and sold out immediately. It was followed by five more editions in his lifetime. The expression "survival of the fittest" did not originate from Darwin's work. Herbert Spencer had already used it in his books about evolutionary philosophy. Though he later described our common ancestor as "a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears," Darwin did not do so in the famous On the Origin of Species

• Biography

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None have fought better, and none have been more fortunate than Charles Darwin. He found a great truth, trodden under foot, reviled by bigots, and ridiculed by all the world; he lived long enough to see it, chiefly by his own efforts, irrefragably established in science, inseparably incorporated with the common thoughts of men, and only hated and feared by those who would revile, but dare not." (Charles Darwin’s obituary, by Thomas Huxley in the journal Nature, April 27, 1882

• Darwin's Precursors and Influences
• A Darwin and evolution overview
• Evolutionary thought before Darwin
• A website dedicated to the life and tomes of Charles Darwin