Born September 14, 1769,
Berlin, Germany
Died May 6, 1859,
Berlin, Germany

A generation before Charles Darwin (see entry), Alexander von Humboldt made an expedition to South America with Aimé Bonpland, during which the two men collected data on the natural history and geography of the region. They discovered Casiquiare Canal, the world’s only natural canal, connecting the Amazon and Orinoco river systems.

Friedrich Wilhelm Karl Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was born in Berlin, then the capital of Prussia, on September 14, 1769, within a year of the birth of several other great Europeans—Napoléon Bonaparte, the Duke of Wellington, and Ludwig von Beethoven. Humboldt’s father was a nobleman and a major in the army of Frederick the Great, king of Prussia. His mother came from a wealthy family descended from French Huguenots who had escaped from France during the persecutions of...