Nicholas Copernicus could not foresee that his name would be associated with the greatest scientific revolution. Born and educated in prosperous 15th-century Poland, he was always a modest and deeply religious man. Unlike many of his followers, the scientist was never persecuted for his ideas. But the ideas were seditious: by placing the Sun at the center of the Universe, Copernicus, on the one hand, threw off the thousand-year yoke of Ptolemy’s theory, and on the other, sowed doubts about the correctness of the biblical presentation of astronomy. Daring to go against traditions and religious dogmas, the Polish astronomer conveyed to us not only a new understanding of the structure of the Universe, but also irrefutable proof of the power and importance of free thought.