History 

          In 1872, a man named Ferdinand Cohn, discovered and recognized and named the bacterium Bacillus subtilis. This organism was created to represent a large and diverse genus of Bacteria, Bacillus,  and then was placed in the family Bacillaceae. The distinguishing features of this family is the production of endospores, which are highly refractile resting structures formed within the bacterial cells. Since this time, members of the genus Bacillus are characterized as Gram-positive, rod-shaped, aerobic or facultative, endospore-forming bacteria.

This is a picture of Ferdinand Cohn.