On Jul. 1, 1858, British naturalists Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace planned to jointly present at the Linnean Society in London, but Darwin’s baby son had died of the scarlet fever and he did not attend the presentation. Wallace did attend and presented on the “Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection.”

The reaction to the presentation was limited, and the president of the Linnean remarked in May 1859 that the year had not been marked by any striking discoveries. However, the publishing of Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” on November 24, 1859 proved very popular. Today, Darwin and Wallace’s theory of evolution remains the foundation of modern biology.