Science · 1543
Copernicus puts the Sun at the centre
Frombork, Royal Prussia (now Poland), where Copernicus is buried
In 1543, shortly before his death on 24 May, the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus published De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres), printed in Nuremberg. The book replaced Ptolemy's Earth-centred system, accepted since ancient times, with a model that placed the Sun at the centre of the universe.
Why it mattered
It began the Copernican Revolution: once Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei supplied supporting evidence half a century later, the Sun-centred model became a cornerstone of the Scientific Revolution.
Elsewhere
Acceptance was slow: by one count, sixty years after publication only about 15 astronomers in all of Europe supported Copernicus's system.
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