The history of biology traces the study of the living world from ancient to modern times. Although the concept of biology as a single coherent field arose in the 19th century, the biological sciences emerged from traditions of medicine and natural history reaching back to ancient Egyptian medicine and the works of Aristotle and Galen in the ancient Greco-Roman world, which were then further developed in the Middle Ages by Muslim physicians and scholars such as Avicenna. During the European Renaissance and early modern period, biological thought was revolutionized in Europe by a renewed interest in empiricism and the discovery of many novel organisms. Prominent in this movement were Vesalius and Harvey, who used experimentation and careful observation in physiology, and naturalists such as Linnaeus and Buffon who began to classify the diversity of life and the fossil record, as well as the development and behavior of organisms. Over the 18th and 19th centuries, biological sciences such as botany and zoology became increasingly professional scientific disciplines. Naturalists began to reject essentialism and reconsider the importance of extinction and the mutability of species. Cell theory provided a new perspective on the fundamental basis of life. These developments, as well as the results were synthesized in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_biology

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

350:

Roman usurper Nepotianus of the Constantinian dynasty proclaimed himself Roman Emperor, entering Rome with a group of gladiators. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepotianus

1621:

The Dutch West India Company received a charter for a trade monopoly in the West Indies by the Dutch Republic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_West_India_Company

1888:

American writer Ernest Thayer's baseball poem "Casey at the Bat" was first published in the San Francisco Examiner. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_at_the_Bat

1937:

Months after he abdicated the British throne, Edward, Duke of Windsor married American socialite Wallis Simpson in a private ceremony near Tours, France. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_VIII_of_the_United_Kingdom

1963:

The Buddhist crisis: Soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam attacked protesting Buddhists in Huế, South Vietnam, with liquid chemicals from tear gas grenades, causing 67 people to be hospitalised for blistering of the skin and respiratory ailments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hue_chemical_attacks

1992:

The High Court of Australia delivered its decision in the landmark case Mabo v Queensland, recognising the land rights of the Aborigines. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabo_v_Queensland

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

recidivous (adj): Prone to relapse into immoral or antisocial behavior http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/recidivous

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

When government disappears, it's not as if paradise will take its place. When governments are gone, other interests will take their place. --Lawrence Lessig http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig