| 1809 | Jean-Baptiste Lamarck | Proposed inheritance of acquired characteristics (use and disuse theory) |
| 1831-1836 | Charles Darwin | Voyage of the Beagle; observed Galapagos finches and South American fauna |
| 1858 | Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace | Co-presented theory of evolution by natural selection (Linnean Society) |
| 1859 | Charles Darwin | Published "On the Origin of Species" |
| 1866 | Gregor Mendel | Published laws of heredity (largely ignored until 1900) |
| 1900 | De Vries, Correns, von Tschermak | Rediscovery of Mendel's laws |
| 1924 | Alexander Oparin | Proposed chemical evolution / primordial soup hypothesis |
| 1929 | J.B.S. Haldane | Independently proposed similar chemical evolution hypothesis |
| 1930s-1950s | Fisher, Haldane, Wright, Dobzhansky, Mayr | Modern Evolutionary Synthesis: uniting Darwin + Mendel + population genetics |
| 1953 | Watson and Crick | DNA double helix structure described |
| 1953 | Miller and Urey | Experimental demonstration of abiogenic amino acid synthesis |
| 1970s-present | Various | Evo-Devo: developmental biology + evolution; discovery of Hox genes |