Events
1971 - Mariner 9 becomes the first spacecraft to orbit another planet (Mars). Though switched off on 27th October 1972, the probe is still in Mars orbit and stable until at least 2022.
Births
1924 - Motoo Kimura, Japanese geneticist (above)
Deaths
1606 - Geronimo Mercuriali, Italian philologist and physician
1994 - Motoo Kimura, Japanese geneticist
More like this
Your nominations? Mine below....
Charles Darwin
R.A. Fisher
Sewall Wright
J.B.S. Haldane
Motoo Kimura
Ernst Mayr
Richard Lewontin
J. M. Smith
W.D. Hamilton
Theodosius Dobzhansky
Below I mentioned the doyen of living population geneticists, James Crow, yeah, Jim Crow.
Via RPM I see that Chad at Uncertain Principles is asking about seminal discoveries and experiments in biology.
Recently a few blogs I follow have been having a back and forth "debate" which seem to recapitulate in the most general sense the "selectionist vs. neutralist" debates of the 1970s.