Charles Darwin And His Theory Of Evolution

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823 – 1913) was an English naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection; his 1858 paper on the subject was published that year alongside extracts from Charles Darwin's earlier writings on the topic. It spurred Darwin to set aside the "big species book" he was drafting and to quickly write an abstract of it, which was published in 1859 as On the Origin of Species.

Alfred Russel Wallace, issued by UK in 2010 to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society

The 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of "On the Origin of Species", Cuba, 2009.

- Darwin's house of birth in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, 12 February 1809.
- The HMS Beagle and map of Darwin's voyage
- Darwin with Hooker and Lyell, discussing the drafts of "On the Origin of Species"
- Darwin and the "Tree of Life"

Centenary of Darwin's visit to the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, 1935 - Galapagos tortoise and iguana.

Darwin with the HMS Beagle and with a friend, Mozambique, 2011.

Saul Adler (1895 – 1966) was an Israeli expert on parasitology. He translated Darwin "the Origin of Species" to Hebrew. Israel, 1994.

Darwin's theory of natural selection explained how species evolve, yet he was often puzzled by their distribution on distant continents. In 1912, Alfred Wegener's theory of Continental Drift proposed that continents had once been joined and later moved apart, offering a solution to this mystery. Together, Darwin's evolutionary biology and Wegener's geology explained how shifting continents and isolation shaped the diversity of life across the globe.

In 1980, both West Germany Berlin and East Germany DDR issued a single stamp each commemorating century of Wegener birth.

One example of the above Wegener theory is given by a set issued in 1982 for use in British Antarctic Territory entitled "Gondwana: continental drift and climate changes". Gondwana was a vast ancient supercontinent, existing from the Paleozoic to the Mesozoic era, approximately 510 to 180 million years ago, that included present-day South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, the Indian subcontinent, and Madagascar.

The stamps depicting the Gondwana break up and the position of the Antarctic in each time point and the climate changes in Antarctic that have occurred over time. Note that the stamp colors reflecting the climate during the period each stamp depicting.

The "Monkey Trial," formally the Scopes Trial (Dayton, Tennessee, 1925), was a landmark case where teacher John T. Scopes was prosecuted for teaching evolution against state law. The trial symbolized the clash between modern science and religious fundamentalism, with Clarence Darrow defending Scopes and William Jennings Bryan leading the prosecution. At its center were Darwin's ideas from On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man, and although Scopes was convicted, the case drew worldwide attention, showing how evolution had become both a cultural and scientific controversy.

I have only one stamp in my collection with connection to "Monkey Trial". It is a stamp of the prosecutor William Jennings Bryan issued by USA in 1986 as one in the set "Great Americans" since he was a famous politician.

Reproduction of Bryan's campaign button I keep in my collection.

A 10 pounds commemorative banknote issued by GB in 2001 commemorating Centenary of Death of Queen Victoria. The back side features Darwin, Hummingbird and HMS Beagle.

For security reasons against counterfeiting, it is impossible to scan this banknote in one piece, and I had to scan parts of it and assemble them together. In addition, the colors in the scan came out much darker compared to the original banknote.