Nicholaus Copernicus (1473-1543)

Born in Poland, Nicholaus Copernicus put forward the idea that the Earth rotates completely in one day and takes one year to travel in an orbit about the Sun. He suggested that the Sun was the centre of the Solar System and not the Earth as was commonly believed at that time.

This completely new view was ignored for nearly two centuries until Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) and Issac Newton (1643-1727) confirmed it to be true.

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