Globalization 1840: Joe Mendel

The theme of our last lecture in 7.00x was Mendel and his milieu. The introduction of good roads, better ships and other transportation in the nineteenth century lead to an explosion of long distance trade. People became aware of new crops and breed of animals and their was intense interest in developing varieties to local conditions. With this impetus, the citizens of Brno, then near the epicenter of the textile trade, embarked on a program to study just how inheritance worked. They recruited a young physics student, a student of Doppler, to carry out the research in the local monastery.

That student was Johan Mendel, who took the name Gregor when he entered the monastery.

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