Solution

A number of hypotheses were suggested to explain heredity, but Gregor Mendel, a little known Central European monk, was the only one who got it more or less right. His ideas had been published in 1866 but largely went unrecognized until 1900, which was long after his death. Mendel's research was with plants, the basic underlying principles of heredity that he discovered also apply to people and other animals because the mechanisms of heredity are essentially the same for all complex life forms.