If you can’t wait until tomorrow to celebrate Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday, just call someone in Darwin, Australia. That northern Australian city, nine and a half hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time – near Darwin’s birthplace of Shrewsbury, England – has already begun celebrating the 200th birthday of its namesake.
要是您等不及明天庆祝查尔斯·达尔文200岁生日，那么，只要给澳大利亚达尔文市某个人打电话就行。那座澳大利亚北部城市比格林威治标准时间早9个半钟头，已经开始庆祝她的同名人诞生200周年——格林威治村在达尔文故乡英格兰什鲁斯伯里附近。
It’s a bit unclear when Darwin – population 120,900 – got its name. Here’s the story, as best we can tell: The first Westerners who paid a visit to the area, which was and still is home to the Aboriginal group the Larrakia, were the Dutch in the 1660s. They were busy mapping the coast and didn't bestow the spot with a name.
人口120,900的达尔文市何时得名有点不太清楚。我们尽量讲好这个故事：最早在1660年代，到这一地区旅行的西方人是荷兰人，该地区当时乃至现在仍然是澳洲土著居民团体拉腊基亚的家乡。荷兰人忙于测绘海岸线，却没有给这个地方命名。
Fast-forward to 1836. Darwin returns from his journey around the world, which included stops along the southern side of Australia on the HMS Beagle. The next year, the Beagle set out on a surveying expedition with the same captain, John Clements Wickham, and admiral, John Lort Stokes. In September 1839, they spotted the harbor, which Wickham and Stokes decided to dub Darwin Harbor in honor of their former traveling companion.
快进到1836年。达尔文结束环球之旅回国，这次乘坐英国皇家海军舰艇贝格尔号的旅行包括沿澳大利亚南部海岸的几处停泊地。第二年，贝格尔号又在船长约翰·克莱门茨·威克姆，和舰队司令约翰·洛特·斯托克斯率领下启航进行测量考察。1839年9月，威克姆和斯托克斯发现了这个海港，为了向他们昔日的旅行伙伴表示敬意，决定称它为达尔文港。
Perhaps owing to the lack of a British population at that point, the name didn't evolve to cover the land around it. In 1869, ten years after the publication of On The Origin of Species, a surveyor named George Goyder launched a tiny settlement (of about 135) at Port Darwin and called it Palmerston–in honor of England's then-Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston.
也许由于那时还没有英国居民，这一名称也就没有发展变化，以覆盖它四周的土地。在《物种起源》出版后十年的1869年，一位名叫乔治·戈伊德的测量师，为了向英国当时的首相帕默斯顿勋爵表示敬意，在达尔文港创建了一个极小的移民村落（约135人），并称之为帕默斯顿。
But Wickham and Stokes were vindicated in 1911, when the area became part of the British Commonwealth, and the city was officially named Darwin. (Today, there is an adjacent town called Palmerston, which is about a fifth the size of Darwin.)
但在1911年，这一地区成为英联邦的一部分，人们就把这座城市正式命名为达尔文市，证明威克姆和斯托克斯是正确的。（今天，邻近有一城镇名为帕默斯顿，大小约为达尔文市的五分之一。）
To celebrate in this, the biggest in – and capital city of – the Northern Territory, there's slated to be an Ozzie Darwin Pow-wow. Throughout the country, other cities and towns will be celebrating with their own events, including a public Darwin Day barbecue in Melbourne (though it's BYO food and drink, so you can hold the kangaroo meat if you want).
这座北部地区首府、也是北部地区最大城市将举行庆祝活动，计划有一个澳大利亚达尔文市土著人歌舞庆典仪式。在全国各地，其他城市和集镇也将有自己的庆祝活动，包括墨尔本的达尔文日公众烧烤野餐（虽然这是自带食物和饮料的活动，但如果想要的话，却可以举办袋鼠肉宴）。
Darwin is across the continent from the bushfires that have so devastated Victoria*. But it has weathered its fair share of hardships, including a World War II bombing raid and 1974’s deadly Cyclone Tracy, which had some of the most violent winds the continent has ever felt.
达尔文市就在澳洲大陆发生严重破坏维多利亚的森林大火的另一面。但它已经平安渡过了相当大部分的艰难困苦，包括二战空袭和1974年致命的特雷西飓风，那次飓风大概是澳洲大陆历来遭受到的最猛烈的风暴。
There are of course other places that bear the naturalist's name. Among them: Darwin Sound (along the Beagle Channel by Tierra del Fuego), Mount Darwin in the Andes, and the Northern Territory's own Charles Darwin University and Charles Darwin National Park.
当然，还有其他地方拥有这位博物学家的名字。其中包括：达尔文海湾（火地岛旁的贝格尔海峡一带）、安第斯山脉中的达尔文山、和属于北部地区自己的查尔斯·达尔文大学和查尔斯·达尔文国家公园。
【本文翻译仅为外语学习及阅读目的，原文作者个人观点与译者及译言网无关】
