Darwin: shy teen, med school dropout, dad of 10 200TH BIRTHDAY

Charles Darwin in 1875. Charles Darwin in 1875. Photo: Ap Photo: Ap Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Darwin: shy teen, med school dropout, dad of 10 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

For a scientist who wrote the most important work on evolutionary biology the world has known, it's hard to believe what a drifting start Charles Darwin had toward greatness.

A dropout from medical school who avoided becoming an Anglican parson, the shy teenager was far more devoted to geologizing around England's rocks and rills, and collecting beetles, worms and curious plants - an obsession that began when he was barely 8 years old - than he was to his university classrooms.

But by 25, Darwin was widely recognized as a talented naturalist, so much so that Robert FitzRoy, commander of the survey ship HMS Beagle, took him on as the "gentleman naturalist" for an exploring voyage around the world.

Darwin suffered from seasickness every day aboard the Beagle, but spent nearly three years happily hiking on land exploring mountains, jungles and the pampas, collecting fossils, birds and plants and describing in detail the geology of a continent wracked by earthquakes.

Back home in England and by virtue of his family's wealth, Darwin was free to pursue his science, amass data, compile detailed notebooks, publish volumes on his varied natural science discoveries from the Beagle voyage and talk - endlessly - with colleagues in London about his growing insights into the origin of species.

But the pace soon exhausted him, and by age 29 he was sick with stomach pains and heart trouble - problems that plagued him much of the rest of his life.

A year later he married his cousin Emma Wedgwood, and the marriage was a great success. The couple had 10 children in all, but two died in infancy, and when their daughter Annie died at 10 it threw Darwin into a deep depression. But as the other children grew, their father loved to roister with them in the family's final home, Down House, in Kent.

When it came to work, Darwin was unstoppable. He compared notes with pigeon fanciers, sheep breeders and flower growers and published more notes and more volumes over the years.

Finally, after the naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace sent him an original paper on evolution in 1857, Darwin's friends pushed him to publish his own theories. Two years later, despite his hesitations, "Origin of Species," his masterwork, was published. A furor erupted.

It was and is a seminal work, but newspapers scoffed, clergymen ranted, and Anglican Bishop Samuel Wilberforce blasted him.

Darwin continued working and writing and thinking at Down House for 20 years more, but by the winter of 1881 his heart began to give out, and on April 19, 1882, at age 73, he died of a heart attack while visiting London to talk science. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.