By one of the most poignant coincidences one can imagine, Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were both born on February 12, 1809. Next Thursday the world will mark the bicentennial of that day that brought it two of the most influential men in history.
Commemorations of Darwin and Lincoln will be legion, of course, and we intend to be part of them. In a series of features next week here at the Britannica Blog, we hope to bring you reflections on the two men and their legacies that add something distinctive to the tributes and debates you’ll see everywhere else. In addition to our regular contributors Bob McHenry, Greg McNamee, and Kara Rogers, we’ll have interviews with the eminent evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala, The New Yorker magazine’s Adam Gopnik, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Princeton historian James McPherson, as well as a couple of interesting videos.
Please join us every day next week, Monday through Thursday, for perspectives on Lincoln and Darwin. Here’s a tentative schedule of the planned posts. Feel free to bookmark this page. It will serve as a table of contents to the entire series, as we add links to each post when it goes live.
- “Believeing in Darwin,” Robert McHenry
- “Beyond Darwin: Eugenics, Social Darwinism, and the Social Theory of the Natural Selection of Humans,” Kara Rogers
- “Every Known Photo of Abraham Lincoln,” Video
- “5 Questions for Francisco Ayala (Evolutionary Biologist & Britannica Contributor) on Charles Darwin & His Legacy,” Encyclopaedia Britannica
- “Stealing Lincoln’s Body (Britannica Blogger Thomas Craughwell on the History Channel),” Video
- “5 Questions for James McPherson (Pulitzer Prize-Winning Historian & Britannica Contributor) on Abraham Lincoln & His Legacy,” Encyclopaedia Britannica
- “Humility and Grace: What Darwin and Lincoln Shared,” Robert McHenry
- “Darwinian Medicine: Understanding Disease in Terms of Evolution,” Kara Rogers
- “5 Questions for Adam Gopnik (Writer and Britannica Contributor) on Lincoln, Darwin, and Their Age,” Encyclopaedia Britannica
- “Lincoln & Kennedy: What About All Those ‘Coincidences’?”
- “The Lincoln Penny at 100“
- “Young Abraham Lincoln: Child of the American Frontier,” Gregory McNamee