In 1831, Charles Darwin began his 5-year expedition aboard the Beagle. While in the Galapagos Islands, he noticed the slight variations between species of finches on different islands. He concluded that these finches must have descended from a common ancestor and changed over time to survive in their specific environments. Darwin universally applied his theory of change, or evolution, to all life on earth which, he speculated, must have descended from a single common ancestor. In his Origin of Species, he supposed, “Probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form…”. These words changed the world.
