jan 1, 1866 - 1866: Gregor Mendel discovers the basic principles of genetics

Description:

In 1866, an unknown Augustinian monk was the first person to shed light on how characteristics are passed down the generations. Today, he is widely considered to be the father of genetics. However, he enjoyed no such notoriety during his lifetime, with his discoveries largely passing the scientific community by. He was so ahead of the game that it took three decades for his paper to be taken seriously.

Between 1856 and 1863 Mendel conducted experiments on pea plants, attempting to crossbreed "true" lines in specific combinations. He identified seven characteristics: plant height, pod shape and colour, seed shape and colour, and flower position and colour.

He found that their offspring was always yellow when a yellow pea plant and a green pea plant were bred together. However, in the next generation of plants, the green peas returned in a ratio of 3:1.

To explain this phenomenon, Mendel coined the terms 'recessive' and 'dominant' in relation to traits. So, in the previous example, the green trait was recessive and the yellow trait was dominant.

In his 1866 published paper, Mendel described the action of 'invisible' factors in providing for visible traits in predictable ways. We now know that the 'invisible' traits he had identified were genes.

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