Ptolemy's Almagest
A geocentric system that held sway for 1,400 years
The Alexandrian scholar Claudius Ptolemy summed up the astronomy of his day in 13 books. In his system the Earth sits motionless at the centre, and the planets' motions are explained by epicycles; a catalogue of over a thousand stars in 48 constellations is included. The name Almagest comes from the Arabic translation, and until Copernicus it remained the standard astronomy textbook.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 2nd century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 165–180 Antonine Plague — 15 years later
Asia
- 132 Zhang Heng's seismoscope — 18 years earlier
Alive at the time
- Marcus Aurelius (aged 29)
- Claudius Ptolemy (aged 50)
- Galen (aged 21)