FASCINATING PEOPLE, Part 10.

Johannes Kepler was born in the Holy Roman Empire of German Nationality. He refused to sign the Formula of Concord, so he was excluded from the sacrament in the Lutheran church. His refusal to convert to Catholicism left him alienated by both the Lutherans and the Catholics. Kepler discovered that the orbit of Mars was an ellipse. He published Astronomia Nova, (Kepler's first two laws of planetary motion). In Harmonices Mundi he defined his "third law." He was first to correctly explain planetary motion, first to investigate the formation of pictures with a pin hole camera; to explain the process of vision and formulate eyeglass designing; formed the basis of integral calculus, first to explain that the tides are caused by the Moon (Galileo reproved him for this), first to suggest that the Sun rotates about its axis, first to derive the birth year of Christ, that is now universally accepted. He successfully defended his mother against charges of witchcraft....His grave was demolished within two years of his death because of the Thirty Years War.