Missed it...

Thursday 1 July 1858, the paper on Natural Selection by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace was read to the Linnean Society. The President of the Society left the meeting muttering that the year had: 'not been marked by any of those striking discoveries which revolutionize, so to speak, our department of science.' (Anecdote from 'Darwin' by Adrian Desmond and James Moore. If it is not on your bookshelf, it should be.)

Snail's Tales was more on the ball than we dopes at the Beagle Project, and he has links.