The idea that the Earth goes around the Sun was proposed 1,800 years before Copernicus.
Around 270 BC Aristarchus of Samos put the Sun at the centre, but his view lost out to Aristotle and Ptolemy.
More amazing facts
- 285 BC · 48 BC · 391 The Library of Alexandria did not vanish in a single blaze.
- 280 BC French phare and Italian and Spanish faro are all the name of one Egyptian island.
- 270 BC The Library of Alexandria grew by confiscation.
- 261 BC · 260 BC Almost simultaneously, Ashoka conquered Kalinga (261 BC) and repented the bloodshed, while China saw the Battle of Changping (260 BC), one of antiquity's bloodiest.
- 261 BC · 1837 By the 19th century Ashoka, one of India's greatest rulers, was almost forgotten: nobody could read his edicts.
- 260 BC · 320 The name Candace was once a title of Nubian queens.