When Charles Darwin returned from his travels aboard the H.M.S. Beagle in 1836, he was welcomed by the scientific community and soon published his journals on the voyage. But some of his observations had given rise to a radical theory that Darwin worked on in secret for two more decades. When this revolutionary work was published in 1859, it is said to have sold out in one day. Publication has continued uninterrupted ever since, as has the controversy it sparked between science and theology.
