Polish Astronomer Mikolaj Kopernik (who Latinized his name to Nicolaus Copernicus) was born February 19, 1473. He attended university in Krakow, Poland, and appeared to be headed for a church career. But he also studied astronomy, geography, and mathematics and was particularly interested in planetary theory and patterns of eclipses. He was offered a church administrative position but delayed taking it so that he could continue scientific studies in astronomy and medicine, which he undertook in Italy. He then returned to Poland and continued studying astronomy while he performed church duties.

At the time, astronomers considered the Earth to be the center of the universe. The Sun and the planets circled the Earth. This belief made it difficult to explain the apparent movements of the planets in the sky, especially when the planets appeared to reverse their motion temporarily. Astronomers explained these observations by appealing to epicycles, which are smaller revolutions within the larger revolution of the planets around the Earth. Copernicus realized that the calculations were much simpler if one assumed that the planets were circling the Sun, not the Earth.

Copernicus feared that such a view might be considered heretical. When he published his views in 1514, it was in a handwritten treatise (Little Commentary) circulated only among his friends. He stated basic axioms which became the basis of his major book, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the revolutions of the heavenly orbs), which he began writing the following year. Among the axioms were that the Earth is not the center of the universe; the distance from the Earth to the Sun is miniscule compared with its distance to the stars; the rotation of the Earth accounts for the apparent movement of stars across the sky each night; the revolution of the Earth accounts for the apparent movements of the Sun and stars over the course of a year; and the apparent backward motion of the planets was caused by the movement of the observer, on the Earth. All of these things are understood by educated people today, but in Copernicus's time the very concept that "the Earth moves" was revolutionary. . .

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