It was four o'clock on Wednesday afternoon of April 19, 1882, when Charles Darwin took his last breath. His final hours had been accompanied by much chest pain and vomiting as his heart struggled to keep going through several attacks. The weakened heart did not survive the final attack and, with the signal death gasp, Charles Darwin left this mortal life. He had lived for 73 years and the last 40 of those years were spent quietly at his house in the village of Downe, just southeast of London.