The world of Copernicus (Sun, stand thou still) - Angus Armitage

Copernicus the Rebel

In the days when Copernicus lived, everybody believed the Earth was fixed at the center of the Universe, and that the heavenly bodies, including the Sun, all went around the Earth in circles.

Copernicus claimed that the Sun was fixed at the center of all things, and that the Earth revolved round the Sun once a year. The other neighboring bodies, he supposed, also made circuits around the Sun, each in a period of its own. He also believed that the Earth turned completely round on itself once in a day. 

Not until a century and a half after his deth, in 1543, did scientists abandon the Earth-centered Universe of the Ancients, and accept the Sun-centered Universe which Copernicus had conceived.