Heliocentrism (1543)

Nicolaus Copernicus's De Revolutionibus (1543), placing the Sun rather than Earth at the centre of the solar system, launched the Scientific Revolution by displacing humanity from the cosmic centre. Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler's work overturned 1,400 years of Ptolemaic geocentrism, challenged Church authority over natural knowledge, and established the principle that empirical observation can override received wisdom — however ancient and authoritative.