Gregor Mendel was born in Heizendorf, Austria on July 22, 1822. Thomas Monastery of the Augustinian Order in 1843. In August of 1847 he was ordained into the priesthood. He realized very quickly after he started his pastoral duties that he was more suited for teaching. He was assigned to a secondary school. He took the exam to be certified as a teacher and failed. Mendel entered the University of Vienna in 1851 to study math and biology. In 1854 he started teaching again. He took the exam to be certified again two years later and became very ill and withdrew. He tried again and failed in 1856. Mendel then started teaching part-time. In 1868 he was promoted in the monastery to Abbot. Gregor Mendel died on January 6, 1884.
Mendel discovered groundbreaking information in the theories of heredity. He used pea pod plants and studied seven basic characteristics. He discovered three basic laws that governed the passage of a trait from one member of a species to another of the same species. The first law states that sex cells of a plant may contain two different traits, but not both of those traits. The second law states that characteristics are inherited independently from another. This is the basis for recessive and dominant gene composition. The third law states that each inherited characteristic is determined by two hereditary factors, one from each parent, which decides if the gene is dominant or recessive. This is recently more known as genes. To sum it up, if a gene is recessive it will not show up within the plant, but the dominant one will. Mendel's theories became the basis for the study of modern genetics. His theories are still used today.
Mendel's led to the discovery of particulate inheritance, dominant and recessive traits, genotype and phenotype, and the idea of heterozygousity and homozygousity. Mendel's peers did not recognize him for his work. It was not until the 1900's that his work was appreciated.