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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class. It's production of I Heart Radio. Hey,

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Speaker 1: I'm Eves and Welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that uncovers history one day at a time.

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Speaker 1: Today is August nineteen. The day was August eighteen fifty eight.

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Speaker 1: British naturalist Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace published the

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Speaker 1: first printed, formal exposition of the theory of evolution by

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Speaker 1: natural selection. In the early eighteen hundreds, French naturalist John

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Speaker 1: Baptiste Lamart developed a coherent theory of evolution. By then,

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Speaker 1: ideas around the transmutation of species as evolution was called

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Speaker 1: We're already percolating, and during these years the principle of

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Speaker 1: natural selection had already been recognized. Natural selection is the

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Speaker 1: process that leads to the survival and reproductive success of

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Speaker 1: organisms best adapted to their environments, and that causes the

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Speaker 1: selective reproduction of the best genetic qualities. But Darwin and

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Speaker 1: Wallace's work put a spotlight on natural selection. After reading

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Speaker 1: Robert chambers book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation,

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Speaker 1: Wallace became intensely interested in figuring out how evolution works.

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Speaker 1: He traveled and collected and studied plants in animals. In

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty four, he left for an expedition to the

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Speaker 1: Malay Archipelago and spent years studying specimens, writing and contemplating evolution.

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Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty five, while he was in Stara Walk

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Speaker 1: in Porneo, he wrote a paper titled on the Law

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Speaker 1: which has regulated the Introduction of New Species, which demonstrated

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Speaker 1: his understanding of the process of evolution. Scottish geologists Charles

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Speaker 1: Lyle read Wallace's paper and began to consider theories of evolution.

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Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty six, Darwin told Lyle that he had

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Speaker 1: been working on a theory that explained how evolution worked

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Speaker 1: for twenty years. Lyle encouraged him to publish his ideas,

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Speaker 1: but Darwin was set on writing an extensive book on

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Speaker 1: natural selection. Around the same time Wallace would come up

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Speaker 1: with the idea of natural selection. He wrote an essay

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Speaker 1: on natural selection on an Indonesian island in February of

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty eight. He then sent the essay along with

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Speaker 1: a letter to Darwin, whom he knew was interested in evolution.

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Speaker 1: The letter arrived at Darwin's house in Camp in June

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Speaker 1: of eighteen fifty eight, so British botanists and Darwin's friend

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Speaker 1: Joseph Dalton Hooker linked up with Charles Lyle and they

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Speaker 1: decided to present Wallace's essay along with excerpts from Darwin's

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Speaker 1: writing on natural selection. They presented the paper at a

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Speaker 1: meeting of the Linnaean Society of London on July one,

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty eight. Darwin and Wallace were not present at

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Speaker 1: the meeting, which was attended by around thirty people. On

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Speaker 1: August the paper was published in the Journal of the

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Speaker 1: Proceedings of the Linnaean Society Zoology. Its title was on

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Speaker 1: the Tendency of Species to form varieties and on the

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Speaker 1: perpetuation of varieties in species by natural means of selection.

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Speaker 1: In the publication, Darwin's writings were put before Wallace's essay,

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Speaker 1: making it seem like Darwin's contributions took priority. The paper

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Speaker 1: included extracts from Darwin's eighteen forty four manuscript of a

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Speaker 1: Work on Species and an abstract of a private letter

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Speaker 1: Darwin addressed to American botanists Asa Gray in eighteen fifty seven.

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Speaker 1: To show that Darwin's views had not changed between eighteen

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Speaker 1: forty four and eighteen fifty seven. The paper also included

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Speaker 1: Allis's essay titled on the Tendency of Varieties to depart

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Speaker 1: Indefinitely from the original type. In the introduction to the paper,

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Speaker 1: Lyle and Hooker say that both Darwin and Wallace conceived

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Speaker 1: the same theory and can quote claim the merit of

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Speaker 1: being original thinkers on the topic, and that both of

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Speaker 1: them unreservedly placed their papers in our hands. But that

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Speaker 1: was not the case. Wallace later said that his essay

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Speaker 1: was printed without his knowledge and without any correction of proofs.

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Speaker 1: The paper was reprinted in other magazines. Darwin decided to

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Speaker 1: halt work on his extensive book on the subject and

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Speaker 1: instead write an abstract of what he'd already written. That

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Speaker 1: abstract became the foundational text on the Origin of Species,

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Speaker 1: published in November of eighteen fifty nine. Wallace continued to

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Speaker 1: work on and write about natural selection. Though Wallace has

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Speaker 1: been overshadowed by Darwin in recent years for his role

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Speaker 1: in developing the theory of evolution by natural selection, Wallace

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Speaker 1: acknowledged Darwin's pioneering work on the subject during his lifetime.

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Speaker 1: I'm Eve Jeffcote, and hopefully you know a little more

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Speaker 1: about history today than you did yesterday. If you have

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Speaker 1: any burning questions or comments to tell us, you can

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Speaker 1: find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at t D

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Speaker 1: i h C podcast. Thanks again for listening, and I

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Speaker 1: hope you come back tomorrow for more delicious morsels of history.

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