Naturalist Charles Darwin returned to England this day in 1836 after a five-year journey on the HMS Beagle, on which he gathered the specimens and observations that led to his theory of evolution by natural selection.
| 1935: | | | Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie ordered mobilization upon learning that Italian forces had crossed the frontier to begin the Italo-Ethiopian War. |
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| 1879: | | | American poet Wallace Stevens, whose work explores the interaction of reality and what man can make of reality in his mind, was born in Reading, Pennsylvania. |
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| 1780: | | British army officer John André was executed by the Americans as a spy after conducting secret meetings with American General Benedict Arnold during the American Revolution. |
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