This Day in Geek History: May 1
1543
Copernicus begins circulating “The Little Commentary,” in which he demonstrates the heliocentricity of the solar system.
1753
Swedish botanist and explorer Carolus Linnaeus publishes the first edition of his two volume work Species Plantarum, in which he systematically names plants. He is the first person to frame principles for defining genera and species of organisms in order to create a uniform system for naming them. Thus, he is often called the father of classification. The Species Plantarum will be adopted by international consent in 1905 as the starting point for modern botanical nomenclature.
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