Charles Darwin He was one of the most important men in history thanks to his theory of evolution. It is enough to understand that the books of the naturalist who died in 1882 are still read today.
But there was two of those manuscripts that mysteriously disappeared from the Cambridge University library and of which there was no trace until a few years ago. Although they finally appeared, the criminal operation behind them remains a mystery to the police.
The history of Darwin’s books that contained information on the theory of evolution
These notebooks were written at the end of the decade of 1830. At that time, Darwin I was returning from the Galapagos Islandsa volcanic archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, about 1,000 km off the coast of Ecuador.
Within these leaves, the one that has a drawn treea symbol that helped the scientist create his theory of evolution and that later served him at work “On the origin of species”. The details and current notes, considered one of the most important in history, were lost for a few years.
The day Darwin’s books were stolen
The manuscripts were last seen in November 2000after they have been removed from their site to be photographed in response to a “internal request”.
Nobody suspected anything, until it was discovered that they were not after a routine checkup two months later made by library staff. The 200 kilometers of space with 10 million books, books and maps led to thinking that the problem was a save error.
But after an extensive search in Cambridge, it was concluded that it had indeed been stolen. It was not until 2020 that the police were called and Interpol was informed about the incident.
How and when Darwin’s books appeared
“Librarian Happy Easter X”read the text that accompanied the notebooks kept in a brown envelope, inside a pink bag that lay as if nothing had happened on the library floor.
Just two years after beginning the investigation, On March 9, 2022, Darwin’s notebooks magically appearedin the same way they had vanished for more than two decades.
Several experts and academics examined the texts and confirmed their authenticity. Jim Secordemeritus professor of history and philosophy of science at the University of Cambridge, explained: “Darwin uses different types of ink in notebooks. For example, on the famous tree of life page, there is both brown and gray ink. Those kinds of changes are quite difficult to convincingly fake.“.
The investigation was limited to check security cameras to find out who had been responsible, although it did not evolve further.
Source: Ambito
