Gregor Mendel

             Gregor Johann Mendel is a famous scientist that was born in Austria on July 22, 1822. Mendel's fame came from his research in the monastery garden. His experiments were based on the modern hereditary theory. Mendel bred thousands of plants and observed the characteristics of each successive generation. Mendel also did experiments by breeding garden peas, which led us to our modern understanding of heredity. British farmers had performed similar breeding experiments over 200 years before Mendel. But Mendel was the first to develop rules that accurately predict patterns of heredity. Mendel discovered patterns that form the basis of genetics. Genetics is the branch of biology that focuses on heredity. Mendel bred thousands of plants and observed the characteristics of each successive generation. .
             Gregor Mendel learned so much about agriculture from his parents, which were peasants. In 1843, Mendel entered the monastery of St. Thomas in Brunn, Austria. Where he studied theology and was ordained as a priest in 1847. About three or four years after being ordained the monastery sent Mendel off study science and mathematics at the University of Vienna. In 1853 he returned to the monastery and taught biology and physics at a local high school. In 1868, Mendel was elected to be the superior of a monastery for men. His administrative responsibilities limited his opportunities for research from then on.
             Later on, Mendel repeated some experiments of a British farmer named T. A. Knight. Knight had bred two individual garden peas that had purple flowers and white flowers. When two of the purple-flowered offspring were crossed, the offspring were both white and purple flowers. Mendel's experiments were different from Knights because Mendel counted how many offspring and studied or determined the nature and relationship of the data. .
             In 1866, Mendel published work on heredity that soon after became the basis for the study of modern genetics.