Robert FitzRoy in the context of Vice-admiral (Royal Navy)

The second voyage of HMS Beagle, from 27 December 1831 to 2 October 1836, was the second survey expedition of HMS Beagle, made under her newest commander, Robert FitzRoy. FitzRoy had thought of the advantages of having someone onboard who could investigate geology, and sought a naturalist to accompany them as a supernumerary. At the age of 22, the graduate Charles Darwin hoped to see the tropics before becoming a parson, and accepted the opportunity. He was greatly influenced by reading Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology during the voyage. By the end of the expedition, Darwin had made his name as a geologist, and fossil collector, and the publication of his journal (later known as The Voyage of the Beagle) gave him wide renown as a writer.

Beagle sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, and then carried out detailed hydrographic surveys around the coasts of southern South America, returning via Tahiti and Australia, after having circumnavigated the Earth. The initial offer to Darwin told him the voyage would last two years; it lasted almost five.

The Voyage of the Beagle, originally published as Journal and Remarks, is an 1839 book written by Charles Darwin, covering his research and activities during the second survey expedition of the ship HMS Beagle, bringing him considerable fame and respect. This was the third volume of The Narrative of the Voyages of H.M. Ships Adventure and Beagle, the other volumes of which were written or edited by the commanders of the ships. Due to the popularity of Darwin's account, the publisher reissued it later in 1839 as Darwin's Journal of Researches, and the revised second edition published in 1845 also used this title. A republication of the book in 1905 introduced the title The Voyage of the Beagle, by which it is now best known.

Beagle sailed from Plymouth Sound on 27 December 1831 under the command of Captain Robert FitzRoy. While the expedition was originally planned to last two years, it lasted almost five—Beagle did not return until 2 October 1836. Darwin spent most of this time exploring on land (three years and three months on land; 18 months at sea). The book is a vivid travel memoir as well as a detailed scientific field journal covering biology, geology, and anthropology that demonstrates Darwin's keen powers of observation, written at a time when Western Europeans were exploring and charting the whole world. Although Darwin revisited some areas during the expedition, for clarity the chapters of the book are ordered by reference to places and locations rather than by date.

The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, Being the first part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. Fitzroy, R.N. during the years 1832 to 1836, was published in 1842 as Charles Darwin's first monograph, and set out his theory of the formation of coral reefs and atolls. He conceived of the idea during the voyage of the Beagle while still in South America, before he had seen a coral island, and wrote it out as HMS Beagle crossed the Pacific Ocean, completing his draft by November 1835. At the time there was great scientific interest in the way that coral reefs formed, and Captain Robert FitzRoy's orders from the Admiralty included the investigation of an atoll as an important scientific aim of the voyage. FitzRoy chose to survey the Keeling Islands in the Indian Ocean. The results supported Darwin's theory that the various types of coral reefs and atolls could be explained by uplift and subsidence of vast areas of the Earth's crust under the oceans.

The book was the first volume of three Darwin wrote about the geology he had investigated during the voyage, and was widely recognised as a major scientific work that presented his deductions from all the available observations on this large subject. In 1853, Darwin was awarded the Royal Society's Royal Medal for the monograph and for his work on barnacles. Darwin's theory that coral reefs formed as the islands and surrounding areas of crust subsided has been supported by modern investigations, and is no longer disputed, while the cause of the subsidence and uplift of areas of crust has continued to be a subject of discussion.

The Wairau Affray of 17 June 1843, also called the Wairau Massacre and the Wairau Incident, was the first serious clash of arms between British settlers and Māori in New Zealand after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi and the only one to take place in the South Island. The incident was sparked when a magistrate and a representative of the New Zealand Company, who held a deed to land in the Wairau Valley in Marlborough in the north of the South Island, led a group of European settlers to attempt to arrest Ngāti Toa chiefs Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata. Fighting broke out and 22 British settlers were killed, nine after their surrender. Four Māori were killed, including Te Rongo, who was Te Rangihaeata's wife.

The incident heightened fears among settlers of an armed Māori insurrection. It created the first major challenge for Governor Robert FitzRoy, who took up his posting in New Zealand six months later. FitzRoy investigated the incident and exonerated Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata, for which he was strongly criticised by settlers and the New Zealand Company. In 1944 a land claims commission investigation determined that the Wairau Valley had not been legally sold. The government was to pay compensation to the Rangitāne iwi, determined to be the original owners (until the early 1830s, when Te Rauparaha had driven them from the area).

The Cherokee class was a class of brig-sloops of the Royal Navy, mounting ten guns. Brig-sloops were sloops-of-war with two masts (a fore mast and a taller main mast) rather than the three masts of ship sloops. Orders for 115 vessels were placed, including five which were cancelled and six for which the orders were replaced by ones for equivalent steam-powered paddle vessels.

Many of these sailing vessels served as mail packet ships, and more than eight assisted with exploration and surveys. The best known of the class was HMS Beagle, then considerably modified for Beagle's second survey voyage under Robert FitzRoy, with the gentleman naturalist Charles Darwin on board as a self-funded supernumerary.

Fitzroya is a monotypic genus in the cypress family. The single living species, Fitzroya cupressoides, is a tall, long-lived conifer native to the Andes mountains and coastal regions of southern Chile, and only to the Argentine Andes, where it is an important member of the Valdivian temperate forests. Common names include lawal (in Mapudungun, Hispanicized as lahual), alerce ([aˈleɾse], "larch" in Spanish), and Patagonian cypress. The genus was named in honour of Robert FitzRoy.

The genus is ancient with it dating back to the Cretaceous of South America. Fossils are also known from the Paleogene of Tasmania, Australia (particularly from the now extinct Fitzroya tasmanensis).

Londonderry Island (Spanish: Isla Londonderry) is an island (UFI -889706) in the Magallanes Region at the western end of the Beagle Channel and Darwin Sound. The island was named by the captain of HMS Beagle, Robert FitzRoy, whose maternal grandfather was The 1st Marquess of Londonderry, an Ulster-Scots peer.

The island is very irregularly shaped. It lies between Fitzroy Bay to the west and Bahía Cook to the east, and between the Pacific Ocean to the south and the Ballenero Channel and O'Brien Channel to the north. Nearby islands include Gilbert Island and Stewart Island to the northwest, O'Brien Island, Chile to the north, and Cook Island (or London Island) and Thompson Island to the east.

The 1860 Oxford evolution debate took place at the Oxford University Museum in Oxford, England, on 7 July 1860, seven months after the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Several prominent British scientists and philosophers participated, including Thomas Henry Huxley, Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, Benjamin Brodie, Joseph Dalton Hooker and Robert FitzRoy.

The encounter is often known as the Huxley–Wilberforce debate or the Wilberforce–Huxley debate, although this description is somewhat misleading. It was not a formal debate between the two, but rather it was an animated discussion after the presentation of a paper by John William Draper of New York University, on the intellectual development of Europe with relation to Darwin's theory (one of a number of scientific papers presented during the week as part of the British Association's annual meeting). Although Huxley and Wilberforce were not the only participants in the discussion, they were reported to be the two dominant parties.