1809

Two hundred years ago today, two of my favorite historical figures were born. Abraham Lincoln was born in a tiny, one room log cabin in Kentucky to two farmers. Charles Darwin was born to wealthy parents (his family owned the Wedgewood China company) in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England.

Each of these men changed history massively; Lincoln held this country together during one of its most tumultuous times; he promoted equality, inspired troops, and became a symbol for all of us that a person from such humble roots can still succeed at the highest level (for more info on Lincoln, you can read my sister, Katie Hargrave's article here). As stated in Gettysburg on November 19, 1863:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Interestingly, Charles Darwin also believed in equality, and was an avid abolitionist (as a yong man, he learned taxidermy from a freed slave). Darwin's work from Origin of Species, though hotly debated, has held up remarkably well; natural selection is a key biological principle, and provides a beautiful model for how the world has changed to be at its current state. He stated that:

As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.

and

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

I think this statement is so beautiful; that forms are continually changing in nature, and that we are all a product of our parents and our changing environments. The NY Times has some great info on evolution and natural selection here.

What a lucky day 2/12/1809 was for nerds like me in 2009!