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Charlie is our Darwin

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beagle diary

03-Dec-1831: Darwin’s first night aboard HMS Beagle

HMS Beagle

Darwin records his experimentations with a hammock.

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13-Jan-1833: The day HMS Beagle nearly sank

HMS Beagle

Charles Darwin’s closest brush with death during the Beagle voyage came on Sunday 13th January 1833, near that most infamous of nautical perils, Cape Horn.

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12-Feb-1834: Darwin’s 25th birthday, Patagonia

How Charles Darwin spent his 25th birthday.

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A miserable birthday aboard HMS Beagle

On Charles Darwin's miserable 23rd birthday (his first aboard HMS Beagle).

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05-Aug-1832: Darwin under fire (get used to it, Charles!)

One of Darwin's pistols

On 5th August 1832, in what he described as ‘an eventful day’, Charles Darwin and his HMS Beagle colleagues helped put down an armed insurrection in Argentina.

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Newsletter

RSS Newsletter

  • Newsletter No. 9: Time flies
    Stolen notebooks · DNA barcoding · butterflies · Mary Anning · flowers · cool videos · insects · snakes · mammalian evolution · book reviews
  • Newsletter No. 8: Reading for amusement
    Darwin reads Malthus · mass extinctions · earthworms · Gilbert White · Lonesome George · lichen · zebras · Neanderthals · life on Venus? · bats · book reviews · and more…

Recent Posts

RSS Recent Posts

  • The Darwin bicentennial oak, 12 years on
    Twelve years ago today, I planted the Darwin Bicentennial Oak in my garden.
  • Hello, South Korea!
    I am delighted to announce that the Friends of Charles Darwin have their first member from South Korea.
  • The Darwin bicentennial oak, 11 years on
    Eleven years ago today, I planted the Darwin Bicentennial Oak in my garden.
  • An embarrassment of Richards
    In which my head appears on a spike (six times).

Recent Articles

RSS Recent Articles

  • 28-Sep-1838: Darwin brainstorms Malthus
    On 28 September 1838, Charles Darwin made some notes inspired by the writings of Rev. Thomas Malthus, and a famous simile was born.
  • Gilbert White’s influence on Charles Darwin
    To mark the 300th anniversary of his birth, a brief account of Rev. Gilbert White’s influence on Charles Darwin.
  • 26-Apr-1882: Charles Darwin buried in Westminster Abbey
    On 26th April 1882, Charles Darwin was buried in Westminster Abbey. How this honour came about is described by his son Francis Darwin in The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin…
  • 03-Dec-1831: Darwin’s first night aboard HMS Beagle
    Darwin records his experimentations with a hammock.

Recent Reviews

RSS Recent Reviews

  • Book review: ‘The Circling Sky’ by Neil Ansell
    On nature and belonging in an ancient forest.
  • Book review: ‘Gone’ by Michael Blencowe
    A search for what remains of the world’s extinct creatures.
  • Book review: ‘The Stubborn Light of Things’ by Melissa Harrison
    A nature diary.

Facebook page

Facebook page

Richard Carter’s other websites

Richard Carter’s other websites

  • RichardCarter.com
        writing &photography
  • Facebook page

    RC Facebook page

  • More…
        Full list of Richard's web presences

Buy my book

On the Moor: Science, History and Nature on a Country Walk
“…wonderfully droll, witty and entertaining… At their best Carter’s moorland walks and his meandering intellectual talk are part of a single, deeply coherent enterprise: a restless inquiry into the meaning of place and the nature of self.”
—Mark Cocker, author and naturalist
Amazon: UK | .COM | etc.
On the Moor
There is grandeur in this view of life…