The Scientific Revolution
Just at the end of the Renaissance era began a time period we call the Scientific Revolution, which ended in the late 18th century. With the advancement of the printing press, we saw rapid intellectual communication spread across the globe. Copernicus published a book about the sun being the center of the solar system, and that kicked off the scientific revolution. Our understanding of Earth's place in our solar system was challenged with his book. Here's a page with his diagram. Before this time people assumed that the Earth was the center of the solar system. Nicolaus Copernicus described the mathematics behind a solar system with the sun at the center. His calculations weren't quite accurate because he assumed the orbits were perfectly circular, which they aren't. Kepler made the radical advancement of suggesting that the orbits of the planets might be ovals, and he took the theory further by calculating those more accurate orbits. So, next came vis...
