Agassiz (Louis A.) is born in Switzerland.

Louis Agassiz arrives in Boston to become professor of geology and zoology at Harvard in 1847. Soon a widower, he makes a fortunate marriage to Elizabeth Cabot Cary in 1850,* and lives at 45 West Street. The leading paleontologists of the day, he helps to establish Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology in 1859. But his opposition to Darwin’s theory of natural selection and promotion of polygenesis, the theory that humans were of different species and that the white race was superior, subsequently mar his reputation. Agassiz dies in Cambridge on December 14, 1873 and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery.