Cuvier , Georges Léopold Chrétien Frédéric Dagobert de , 1769-1832 , paleontologist and anatomist

Born in Montbéliard, in Burgundy, 1769; Went to Caroline University, near Stuttgart, Germany, to study administrative, juridical, and economic sciences, 1784. Also studied natural history and comparative anatomy. Education complete, he served as a tutor for a French family in 1788; Moved to Paris in 1795 where he was invited by French naturalist Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire to study and work at the newly reorganized Museum of Natural History. Immediately appointed Professor of Zoology and Assistant Professor of Animal Anatomy. Became Professor at the Collège de France in 1800; Broke with doctrine that all life could be organized into a continuous series beginning with the simplest organism and ending with humans in favour of the idea that four basic body plans existed in the animal world: the Vertebrata, Articulata, Radiata, and Mollusca; his 1817 Le Regne Animal dominated natural history in England and France until the publication in 1859 of On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin. Also served in other public service positions: Councillor of State in 1814 and Head of the Interior Department of the Council of State, 1819.