Gregor Johann Mendel, 62, passed January 6, 1884. He was born to Anton Mendel, and Rosine Mendel, July 20, 1822.

Gregor Mendel, formally known as the "Father of modern genetics," was an Austrian monk who discovered the basic principles of heredity, the passing of genetic factors from parent to offspring, through experiments in his garden.

Mendel chose pea plants because the peas were inexpensive, easy to obtain, and can either self-pollinate or cross-pollinate.

He first started this experiment with two parental pure lines, that he had grown himself for two years to make sure they were pure. Next Mendel made the dihybrid cross by selfing the dihybrid F1 to obtain the F2 generation (The four female gametic types were fertilized randomly by the four male gametic types to obtain the F2, forming a zygote). F1 was the first filial generation and F2 was the second filial generation. Mendel inferred that the F1 plants receive from their parents the abilities to produce both the purple phenotype and the white phenotype and that these abilities are retained and passed on to future generations. Mendel pollinated pea plants with pollen from other plants with different characteristics, such as height, seed texture, and seed color.

Throughout Mendels long time on this Earth, he made some really important discoveries. 1. The law of independent assortment; unlinked or distantly linked segregating gene pairs assort independently at meiosis, meaning traits are passed to offspring through gametes independently. 2. The law of segregation; members of the gene pairs segregate equally into the gametes, or eggs and sperm, resulting in the offspring receiving one from each parent. 3. Mendel showed that the dominance of one phenotype over another is in fact due to the dominance of one member of a gene pair over the other.

Griffiths, Anthony JF. “Mendel's experiments.” An Introduction to Genetic Analysis. 7th edition., U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1 Jan. 1970, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22098/.

“Gregor Mendel.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 28 Apr. 2017, www.biography.com/people/gregor-mendel-39282.