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Christopher Columbus was born as a Amerigo Vespucci, explorers
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Georg Peurbach's New Theory of the Planets (1454) sought to reconcile geometric descriptive models for predicting planetary motions by employing homocentric (nested concentric) celestial spheres.
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Peter Apian (1495-1552) and Fracastoro observe that the tail of the comet his year, later known as Halley's Comet, pointed away from the sun, a detail also recognized by Regiomontanus.
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Georg Joachim Rheticus (1514-1574), a friend of Copernicus and the presumed author, provides an account of the heliocentric hypothesis in his Narratio prima (First Account).
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A man of religious conviction, Michael Servetus (1511-1553) proposed a radical new theory concerning the pulmonary circulation of the blood, a theory motivated in part by esoteric theological concerns involving the trinity. Servetus was found guilty of heresy and burned at the stake in Geneva by the religious reformer, John Calvin.
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The Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolph II, becomes the patron of Johannes Kepler, who thus becomes Imperial Mathematician.
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In his Letters on Sunspots Galileo took exception with the views presented by the Jesuit astronomer, Christopher Scheiner (1573-1650). Here Galileo appears clearly in the Copernican camp and also provides an early formulation for the principle of inertia.
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Galileo publishes his strategic essay, The Assayer where he argues against Aristotle and the Scholastics in favor of mathematical and experimental methods, moving deftly across many topics, from statics and dynamics to his theory of matter.
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Newton refuses to grant publication of Short Chronology but publishes it later that year. Newton suffers inflammation of his lungs and moves to Kensington (south London).
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Newton's health fails, he collapses and borders on death; shortly thereafter, Newton dies at Kensington between 1.00 and 2.00am. On 28 March his body lays in state in Westminster Abbey where he is buried on 4 April.
