I can picture it now. The very day.
But first. Let’s talk about Charles Darwin’s boat. It was called the HMS Beagle. Whenever I read about Darwin sailing around the Earth, visiting all the little nooks and crannies of the world, it is always clear that he is traveling in the HMS Beagle. Her Majesty’s Ship. The Beagle.
I’m not sure who named it that way, and of course, it predates the birth of Snoopy. But I can’t help but see that most famous beagle in the form of a ship, with Darwin and his gang on board.
Regardless, it was on this date, February 6, 1836, when the HMS Beagle and Charles Darwin arrived in Van Diemen’s Land. That would be Tasmania. So now I have two cartoon characters in my head. Not only is Snoopy a big ship, but when Darwin steps off the boat and onto the shores of Van Diemen’s Land, he is greeted by none other than the Tasmania Devil. Yes. That’s the one. Of Bug’s Bunny fame.
I can only imagine Darwin trying to make it past the shore to the tree line, but the Tasmanian Devil spins around and slobbers and blathers. All the while threatening to put Darwin in a boiling pot of water over some big fire somewhere.
I’m not sure how Darwin ever got a lick of work done concerning his principles of evolution, what with all this commotion everywhere.
Who knows. It might have happened. The Tasmanian devil thing.
I mean. There is a lot we don’t know about Charles Darwin, the man behind the idea of Natural Selection and Evolution.
Like this. Darwin was born on the same day as Abraham Lincoln. True. These two great men were both born on February 12, 1809. Of course, their circumstances were much different. Lincoln entered this world in some crude log cabin deep in the Kentucky wilderness. Darwin, on the other hand, was born in a grand Georgian house on an estate near the town of Shrewsbury, England.
Here’s another thing. The last time I was on a cruise, it lasted for 16 days, as I recall. But Darwin was on his boat for five long years. Yes, he moved from place to place over those 1,825 days, give or take a few.
And all that research he gathered led him to establish his thoughts on evolution, eventually writing and presenting it to the world in a published work entitled, “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.”
But here is the thing. He waited more than 20 years to publish his groundbreaking theory on evolution. He stepped off the boat in 1836 and did not release his findings to the world until 1858. He didn’t think the world was ready for it. And I’ll tell you, they were not. Some people still do not believe that humans have evolved. They think the apple / snake / naked people in the garden thing was the beginning of the world.
But all that traveling didn’t come without a cost. After returning home from the adventure, Darwin began to suffer from exhaustion and chronic bouts of nausea. He developed chronic eczema. He also suffered from regular headaches and heart palpitations that would persist for the rest of his life. Some medical historians say that during his travels, Darwin could have contracted a parasitic illness called Chagas disease. As a result, it led to cardiac damage, which ultimately caused Darwin’s death.
He and Lincoln did not die on the same date.
Lincoln was shot in the head and killed on April 15, 1865.
Darwin died on April 19, 1882. He suffered, as mentioned, from heart issues.
But 46 years earlier, he rode in the big Snoopy Boat and met Bugs Bunny and the slobbering, dribbling, spinning Tazmanian Devil.
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“Exploration is curiosity put into action.” – Don Walsh.
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“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
― Galileo Galilei, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina
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“Explore your existence.” – Lailah Gifty Akita.
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Charlie Brown, or Charlie Darwin? Bugs knows.
