Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy, on the 15th of February 1564, he died on the 8th of January 1642

Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy, on the 15th of February 1564, he died on the 8th of January 1642.

Galileo was a ground breaking astronomer, physicist, mathematician, philosopher and inventor. Among his inventions were telescopes, a compass and a thermometer.

Galileo enrolled to do a medical degree at the University of Pisa but never finished, instead choosing to study mathematics.

Galileo was the person who invented the telescope - or was he?

Galileo built on the work of others to create a telescope with around 3x magnification, he later improved on this to make telescopes with around 30x magnification.

He didn’t actually invent the telescope, he got the idea

from a Dutch glasses maker who had invented a spyglass.

He was the first to use a telescope to formally observe

the sky, though.

Here is a picture of Galileo and one of his telescopes.