This Day in History: 1600-02-17

Italian astronomer Giordano Bruno is burned at the stake on this day in 1600 following a seven-year Inquisition. Among Bruno’s heresies was the idea that the earth circles the sun and that the stars in the sky are other suns like ours.  He is widely regarded as a martyr to science, and the consequences of his refusal to recant his heresies was on Galileo’s mind when he was accused of heresy for his heliocentric theory of the solar system.