I was recently reading Washington Irving's first book, from 1809, where he mentioned Darwin arguing that humans are descended from monkeys, and I thought "that

I was recently reading Washington Irving's first book, from 1809, where he mentioned Darwin arguing that humans are descended from monkeys, and I thought "that seems a little early." Turns out he was talking about Charles Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus, who laid some of the groundwork for Charles, and he was famous for writing romantic poems about scientific subjects like reproduction of flowers to help encourage more people to get involved with science.