title: Downton Abbey (film)

text: June Thomas writing for "Slate" praised the film, writing: "The plot of the "Downton Abbey" movie is brilliant, not so much because it is surprising, but because it allows every member of the cast to do what we expect of them". In a more lukewarm reaction, Peter Bradshaw, writing for "The Guardian", said: "The "Downton Abbey" movie is not as spectacularly star-studded as "Gosford Park", but it's got its share of A-list talent, however: Maggie Smith, of course, as the dowager Countess of Grantham, Hugh Bonneville as Lord Grantham (absent-mindedly fondling his retriever at breakfast) – there's also Imelda Staunton in a new role and Jim Carter as the beetle-browed former butler Mr Carson. All are very underused".


title: Downton Abbey (film)

text: Writing in the British publication "Radio Times", Eleanor Bley Griffiths writes that Downton the film is "frankly disappointing". She explains that "What the film lacks is any sense of real jeopardy. As we found out from the trailer, the big plot-line is this: the King and Queen are coming to dinner and Downton must be made perfect! But that simple story is stretched out to a full two hours of incredibly low-stakes, predictable drama with an overabundance of sub-plots". Griffiths goes on to unfavourably compare the new film with the TV series: "On TV, there was time to explore different threads and highlight specific characters as the series went on; but the movie gives us a whole series-worth of storylines draped over one lacklustre main plot".


title: Downton Abbey (film)

text: The cast and crew were featured in a short interview segment on PBS public television on 20 September 2019, as recognition of the influence which the film and related series have had on American popular culture.


title: Downton Abbey (film)

text: After the release of the film, the creator Julian Fellowes and the cast stated that they already had ideas about producing a sequel.


title: Downton Abbey (film)

text: It was announced on 19 April 2021 that the sequel, titled "Downton Abbey: A New Era", was already in production, with the entire cast set to return, alongside new arrivals Hugh Dancy, Laura Haddock, Nathalie Baye and Dominic West. Engler did not return as director, with Simon Curtis replacing him. It was released on 29 April 2022.


title: Live Aid

text: Live Aid was a multi-venue benefit concert held on Saturday 13 July 1985, as well as a music-based fundraising initiative. The original event was organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise further funds for relief of the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia, a movement that started with the release of the successful charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in December 1984. Billed as the "global jukebox", Live Aid was held simultaneously at Wembley Stadium in London, attended by about 72,000 people, and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, attended by 89,484 people.


title: Live Aid

text: On the same day, concerts inspired by the initiative were held in other countries, such as the Soviet Union, Canada, Japan, Yugoslavia, Austria, Australia and West Germany. It was one of the largest satellite link-ups and television broadcasts of all time; an estimated audience of 1.9 billion, in 150 nations, watched the live broadcast, nearly 40 percent of the world population.


title: Live Aid

text: The impact of Live Aid on famine relief has been debated for years. One aid relief worker stated that following the publicity generated by the concert, "humanitarian concern is now at the centre of foreign policy" for Western governments. Geldof has said, "We took an issue that was nowhere on the political agenda and, through the "lingua franca" of the planet – which is not English but rock 'n' roll – we were able to address the intellectual absurdity and the moral repulsion of people dying of want in a world of surplus." In another interview he stated that Live Aid "created something permanent and self-sustaining" but also asked why Africa is getting poorer. The organisers of Live Aid tried to run aid efforts directly, channelling millions of pounds to NGOs in Ethiopia. It has been alleged that much of this went to the Ethiopian government of Mengistu Haile Mariam – a regime the UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opposed – and it is also alleged some funds were spent on guns. The BBC stated in 2010 there was no evidence money had been diverted, while the former British Ambassador to Ethiopia, Brian Barder, states, "the diversion of aid related only to the tiny proportion that was supplied by some NGOs to rebel-held areas."


title: Live Aid

text: The 1985 Live Aid concert was conceived as a follow-on to the successful charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" which was also the brainchild of Geldof and Ure. In October 1984, images of hundreds of thousands of people starving to death in Ethiopia were shown in the UK in Michael Buerk's BBC News reports on the 1984 famine. The BBC News crew were the first to document the famine, with Buerk's report on 23 October describing it as "a biblical famine in the 20th century" and "the closest thing to hell on Earth". The reports featured a young nurse, Claire Bertschinger, who, surrounded by 85,000 starving people, told of her sorrow of having to decide which children would be allowed access to the limited food supplies in the feeding station and which were too sick to be saved. She would put a little mark on the children who got chosen, with Geldof stating of her at the time, "In her was vested the power of life and death. She had become God-like and that is unbearable for anyone." Traumatised by what she experienced she did not speak about it for two decades, recalling in 2005, "I felt like a Nazi sending people to the death camps. Why was I in this situation? Why was it possible in this time of plenty that some have food and some do not? It is not right".


title: Live Aid

text: Shocked by the report, the British public inundated relief agencies, such as Save the Children, with donations, with the report also bringing the world's attention to the crisis in Ethiopia. Such was the magnitude of Buerk's report it was also broadcast in its entirety on a major US news channel—almost unheard of at the time. From his home in London Geldof also saw the report, and called Ure from Ultravox (Geldof and Ure had previously worked together for charity when they appeared at the 1981 benefit show "The Secret Policeman's Ball" in London) and together they quickly co-wrote the song, "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in the hope of raising money for famine relief. Geldof then contacted colleagues in the music industry and persuaded them to record the single under the title 'Band Aid' for free. On 25 November 1984, the song was recorded at Sarm West Studios in Notting Hill, London, and was released four days later. It stayed at number one for five weeks in the UK, was Christmas number one, and became the fastest-selling single ever in Britain and raised £8 million, rather than the £70,000 Geldof and Ure had initially expected. Geldof then set his sights on staging a huge concert to raise further funds.


title: Live Aid

text: The idea to stage a charity concert to raise more funds for Ethiopia originally came from Boy George, the lead singer of Culture Club. George and Culture Club drummer Jon Moss had taken part in the recording of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and in the same month, the band were undertaking a tour of the UK, which culminated in six nights at Wembley Arena. On the final night at Wembley, 22 December 1984, an impromptu gathering of some of the other artists from Band Aid joined Culture Club on stage at the end of the concert for an encore of "Do They Know It's Christmas?". George was so overcome by the occasion he told Geldof that they should consider organising a benefit concert. Speaking to the UK music magazine "Melody Maker" at the beginning of January 1985, Geldof revealed his enthusiasm for George's idea, saying, "If George is organising it, you can tell him he can call me at any time and I'll do it. It's a logical progression from the record, but the point is you don't just talk about it, you go ahead and do it!"


title: Live Aid

text: It was clear from the interview that Geldof had already had the idea to hold a dual venue concert and how the concerts should be structured:


title: Live Aid

text: On how Geldof got artists to agree to play, Live Aid production manager Andy Zweck states, "Bob had to play some tricks to get artists involved. He had to call Elton and say Queen are in and Bowie's in, and of course they weren't. Then he'd call Bowie and say Elton and Queen are in. It was a game of bluff."


title: Live Aid

text: Among those involved in organising Live Aid were Harvey Goldsmith, who was responsible for the Wembley Stadium concert, and Bill Graham, who put together the American leg. On promoting the event, Goldsmith states, "I didn't really get a chance to say no. Bob [Geldof] arrived in my office and basically said, 'We're doing this.' It started from there."


title: Live Aid

text: The concert grew in scope, as more acts were added on both sides of the Atlantic. Tony Verna, inventor of instant replay, was able to secure John F. Kennedy Stadium through his friendship with Philadelphia Mayor Goode and was able to procure, through his connections with ABC's prime time chief, John Hamlin, a three-hour prime time slot on the ABC Network and, in addition, was able to supplement the lengthy program through meetings that resulted in the addition of an ad-hoc network within the US, which covered 85 per cent of TVs there. Verna designed the needed satellite schematic and became the Executive Director as well as the Co-Executive Producer along with Hal Uplinger. Uplinger came up with the idea to produce a four-hour video edit of Live Aid to distribute to those countries without the necessary satellite equipment to rebroadcast the live feed.


title: Live Aid

text: The concert began at 12:00 British Summer Time (BST) (7:00 Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)) at Wembley Stadium in the United Kingdom. It continued at John F. Kennedy Stadium (JFK) in the United States, starting at 13:51 BST (8:51 EDT). The UK's Wembley performances ended at 22:00 BST (17:00 EDT). The JFK performances and whole concert in the US ended at 04:05 BST 14 July (23:05 EDT). Thus, the concert continued for just over 16 hours, but since many artists' performances were conducted simultaneously in Wembley and JFK, the total concert's length was much longer.


title: Live Aid

text: Mick Jagger and David Bowie intended to perform a transatlantic duet, with Bowie in London and Jagger in Philadelphia. Problems of synchronisation meant the only practical solution was to have one artist, likely Bowie at Wembley, mime along to prerecorded vocals broadcast as part of the live sound mix for Jagger's performance from Philadelphia. Veteran music engineer David Richards (Pink Floyd and Queen) was brought in to create footage and sound mixes Jagger and Bowie could perform to in their respective venues. The BBC would then have had to ensure those footage and sound mixes were in sync while also performing a live vision mix of the footage from both venues. The combined footage would then have had to be bounced back by satellite to the various broadcasters around the world. Due to the time lag (the signal would take several seconds to be broadcast twice across the Atlantic Ocean), Richards concluded there was no way for Jagger to hear or see Bowie's performance, meaning there could be no interaction between the artists, essentially defeating the whole point of the exercise. On top of this, both artists objected to the idea of miming at what was perceived as a historic event. Instead, Jagger and Bowie worked with Richards to create a video of the song they would have performed, a cover of "Dancing in the Street", which was shown on the screens of both stadiums and broadcast as part of many TV networks' coverage.


title: Live Aid

text: Each of the two main parts of the concert ended with their particular continental all-star anti-hunger anthems, with Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" closing the UK concert, and USA for Africa's "We Are the World" closing the US concert (and thus the entire event itself).


title: Live Aid

text: Concert organisers have subsequently said they were particularly keen to ensure at least one surviving member of the Beatles, ideally Paul McCartney, took part in the concert as they felt that having an 'elder statesman' from British music would give it greater legitimacy in the eyes of the political leaders whose opinions the performers were trying to shape. McCartney agreed to perform and has said it was "the management" – his children – who persuaded him to take part. In the event, he was the last performer (aside from the Band Aid finale) to take to the stage and one of the few to be beset by technical difficulties; his microphone failed for the first two minutes of his piano performance of "Let It Be", making it difficult for television viewers and impossible for those in the stadium to hear him. He later joked by saying he had thought about changing the lyrics to "There will be some feedback, let it be".


title: Live Aid

text: Phil Collins performed at both Wembley Stadium and JFK, travelling from Wembley by helicopter (piloted by UK TV personality Noel Edmonds) to London Heathrow Airport, then took a British Airways Concorde flight to New York City, before taking another helicopter to Philadelphia. As well as his own set at both venues, he also played the drums for Eric Clapton, and played with the reuniting surviving members of Led Zeppelin at JFK. On the Concorde flight, Collins encountered actress and singer Cher, who was unaware of the concerts. Upon reaching the US, she attended the Philadelphia concert and can be seen performing as part of the concert's "We Are the World" finale. In a 1985 interview, singer-songwriter Billy Joel stated that he had considered performing at the event, but ultimately chose not to because he had difficulties getting his band together and did not want to perform by himself.


title: Live Aid

text: The concert was the most ambitious international satellite television venture that had ever been attempted at the time. In Europe, the TV feed was supplied by the BBC, whose broadcast was presented by Richard Skinner, Andy Kershaw, Mark Ellen, David Hepworth, Andy Batten-Foster, Steve Blacknell, Paul Gambaccini, Janice Long and Mike Smith and included numerous interviews and chats in between the various acts. The BBC's television sound feed was mono, as was all UK TV audio before NICAM was introduced, but the BBC Radio 1 feed was stereo and was simulcast in sync with the TV pictures. Unfortunately, in the rush to set up the transatlantic feeds, the sound feed from Philadelphia was sent to London via transatlantic cable, while the video feed was via satellite, which meant a lack of synchronisation on British television receivers. Due to the constant activities in both London and Philadelphia, the BBC producers omitted the reunion of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young from their broadcast. The BBC, however, did supply a 'clean feed' to various television channels in Europe.


title: Live Aid

text: ABC was largely responsible for the US broadcast (although ABC themselves only telecast the final three hours of the concert from Philadelphia, hosted by Dick Clark, with the rest shown in syndication through Orbis Communications, acting on behalf of ABC). An entirely separate and simultaneous US feed was provided for cable viewers by MTV, whose broadcast was presented in stereo, and accessible as such for those with stereo televisions. At the time, before multichannel television sound was enacted nationwide, very few televisions reproduced stereo signals and few television stations were able to broadcast in stereo. While the telecast was run advertisement-free by the BBC, both the MTV and syndicated/ABC broadcasts included advertisements and interviews. As a result, many songs were omitted due to the commercial breaks, as these songs were played during these slots.


title: Live Aid

text: The biggest issue of the syndicated/ABC coverage is that the network had wanted to reserve some of the biggest acts that had played earlier in the day for certain points in the entire broadcast, particularly in the final three hours in prime time; thus, Orbis Communications had some sequences replaced by others, especially those portions of the concert that had acts from London and Philadelphia playing simultaneously. For example, while the London/Wembley finale was taking place at 22:00 (10:00 pm) London time, syndicated viewers saw segments that had been recorded earlier, so that ABC could show the UK finale during its prime-time portion. In 1995, VH1 and MuchMusic aired a re-edited ten-hour re-broadcast of the concert for its 10th anniversary.


title: Live Aid

text: The Live Aid concert in London was also the first time that the BBC outside broadcast sound equipment had been used for an event of such scale. In stark contrast to the mirrored sound systems commonly used by the rock band touring engineers, with two 40–48-channel mixing consoles at the front of house and another pair for monitors, the BBC sound engineers had to use multiple 12-channel desks. Some credit this as the point where the mainstream entertainment industry realised that the rock concert industry had overtaken them in technical expertise.


title: Live Aid

text: The Coldstream Guards band opened with the "Royal Salute", a brief version of the national anthem "God Save the Queen". Status Quo were the first act to appear and started their set with "Rockin' All Over the World", also playing "Caroline" and fan favourite "Don't Waste My Time". "Bob told me, 'It doesn't matter a fuck what you sound like, just so long as you're there,'" recalled guitarist and singer Francis Rossi. "Thanks for the fucking honesty, Sir Bob." This would be the band's last appearance with bassist and founder member Alan Lancaster and drummer Pete Kircher. Princess Diana and Prince Charles were among those in attendance as the concert commenced.


title: Live Aid

text: Bob Geldof performed with the rest of the Boomtown Rats, singing "I Don't Like Mondays". He stopped just after the line "The lesson today is how to die" to loud applause. According to Gary Kemp, "Dare I say it, it was evangelical, that moment when Geldof stopped 'I Don't Like Mondays' and raised his fist in the air. He was a sort of statesman. A link between punk and the New Romantics and the Eighties. You would follow him. He just has a huge charisma; he'd make a frightening politician." He finished the song and left the crowd to sing the final words. Elvis Costello sang a version of the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love", which he introduced by asking the audience to "help [him] sing this old northern English folk song".


title: Live Aid

text: Queen's twenty-one minute performance, which began at 6:41 pm, was voted the greatest live performance in the history of rock in a 2005 industry poll of more than 60 artists, journalists and music industry executives. Freddie Mercury at times led the crowd in unison refrains, and his sustained note—"Aaaaaay-o"—during the a cappella section came to be known as "The Note Heard Round the World". The band's six-song set opened with a shortened version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" and closed with "We Are the Champions". Later in the evening, Mercury and band member Brian May sang the first song of the three-part Wembley event finale, "Is This the World We Created...?"


title: Live Aid

text: Other well-received performances on the day included those by U2 and David Bowie. "The Guardian" cited Live Aid as the event that made stars of U2. The band played a 12-minute rendition of "Bad". The length of "Bad" limited them to two songs; a third, "Pride (In the Name of Love)", had to be dropped. During "Bad", vocalist Bono jumped off the stage to join the crowd and dance with a teenage girl. In July 2005, the woman said that he had saved her life. She was being crushed by people pushing forwards; Bono saw this, and gestured frantically at the ushers to help her. They did not understand what he was saying, and so he jumped down to help her himself. "Rolling Stone" described David Bowie's performance as "arguably Bowie's last triumph of the 1980s", observing that "as approximately two billion people sang along to 'Heroes' [...], he still seemed like one of the biggest and most vital rock stars in the world". Dire Straits and Phil Collins (both accompanied by Sting) also received praise for their performances at Wembley.


title: Live Aid

text: The transatlantic broadcast from Wembley suffered technical problems and failed during The Who's performance of their opening song "My Generation", immediately after Roger Daltrey sang "Why don't you all fade ..." (the last word "away" was cut off when a blown fuse caused the Wembley stage TV feed to temporarily fail). The broadcast returned as the last verse of "Pinball Wizard" was played. John Entwistle's bass wouldn't work at the start, causing an awkward delay of over a minute before they could start playing. The band played with Kenney Jones on drums and it was their first performance since disbanding after a 1982 'farewell' tour. The Who's performance was described as "rough but right" by "Rolling Stone", but they would not perform together again for another three years. At 32 minutes Elton John had the longest set on the day; his setlist included the first performance of "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" with George Michael.


title: Live Aid

text: While performing "Let It Be" near the end of the Wembley show, the microphone mounted to Paul McCartney's piano failed for the first two minutes of the song, making it difficult for television viewers and the stadium audience to hear him. During this performance, the TV audience were better off, audio-wise, than the stadium audience, as the TV sound was picked up from other microphones near McCartney. The stadium audience, who could obviously not hear the electronic sound feed from these mics, unless they had portable TV sets and radios, drowned out what little sound from McCartney could be heard during this part of his performance. As a result, organiser and performer Bob Geldof, accompanied by earlier performers David Bowie, Alison Moyet and Pete Townshend returned to the stage to sing with him and back him up (as did the stadium audience despite not being able to hear much), by which time McCartney's microphone had been repaired.


title: Live Aid

text: At the conclusion of the Wembley performances, Geldof was raised onto the shoulders of the Who's guitarist Pete Townshend and Paul McCartney. Geldof stated that he hadn't slept "in weeks" in the lead-up to the concert, and when asked what his plans were post-Live Aid, he told an interviewer, "I'm going to go home and sleep."


title: Live Aid

text: The Wembley speaker system was provided by Hill Pro Audio. It consisted primarily of the Hill J-Series Mixing Consoles, Hill M3 Speaker System powered by the Hill 3000 amplifiers. In an interview with Studio Sound in December 1985, Malcolm Hill described the concept for the system in detail.


title: Live Aid

text: The host of the televised portion of the concert in Philadelphia was actor Jack Nicholson. The opening artist Joan Baez announced to the crowd, "this is your Woodstock, and it's long overdue", before leading the crowd in singing "Amazing Grace" and "We Are the World".


title: Live Aid

text: Despite the ambient temperature, Madonna proclaimed "I ain't taking shit off today!" during her set, referring to the recent release of early nude photos of her in "Playboy" and "Penthouse" magazines.


title: Live Aid

text: During his opening number, "American Girl", Tom Petty flipped the middle finger to somebody off stage about one minute into the song. Petty stated the song was a last-minute addition when the band realised that they would be the first act to play the American side of the concert after the London finale and "since this is, after all, JFK Stadium".


title: Live Aid

text: When Bob Dylan broke a guitar string, while playing with the Rolling Stones members Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, Wood took off his own guitar and gave it to Dylan. Wood was left standing on stage guitarless. After shrugging to the audience, he played air guitar, even mimicking the Who's Pete Townshend by swinging his arm in wide circles, until a stagehand brought him a replacement. The performance was included in the DVD, including the guitar switch and Wood talking to stage hands, but much of the footage used was close-ups of either Dylan or Richards.


title: Live Aid

text: During their duet on the reprise of "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll", Mick Jagger ripped away part of Tina Turner's dress, leaving her to finish the song in what was, effectively, a leotard.


title: Live Aid

text: The JFK portion included reunions of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, the original Black Sabbath with Ozzy Osbourne, the Beach Boys with Brian Wilson, and surviving members of Led Zeppelin, with Phil Collins and the Power Station (and former Chic) member Tony Thompson sharing duties on drums in place of the band's late drummer John Bonham (although they were not officially announced by their group name from the stage, but were announced as Led Zeppelin on the VH1 10th Anniversary re-broadcast in 1995).


title: Live Aid

text: Teddy Pendergrass made his first public appearance since his near-fatal car accident in 1982 which paralysed him. Pendergrass, along with Ashford & Simpson, performed "Reach Out and Touch". Bryan Adams (who came on after Judas Priest), recalled "it was bedlam backstage", before performing a four-song set, including "Summer of '69".


title: Live Aid

text: Duran Duran performed a four-song set which was the final time the five original band members would publicly perform together until 2003. Their set saw a weak, off-key falsetto note hit by frontman Simon Le Bon during "A View to a Kill". The error was dubbed "The Bum Note Heard Round the World" by various media outlets, in contrast to Freddie Mercury's "Note Heard Round the World" at Wembley. Le Bon later recalled it was the most embarrassing moment of his career.


title: Live Aid

text: The UK TV feed from Philadelphia was dogged by an intermittent buzzing on the sound during Bryan Adams' turn on stage and continued less frequently throughout the rest of the UK reception of the American concert and both the audio and video feed failed entirely during that performance and during Simple Minds' performance.


title: Live Aid

text: Phil Collins, who had performed in London earlier in the day, began his solo set with the quip, "I was in England this afternoon. Funny old world, innit?" to cheers from the Philadelphia crowd. Collins played drums during Eric Clapton's 17 minute set, which included well received performances of "Layla" and "White Room".


title: Live Aid

text: Throughout the concerts, viewers were urged to donate money to the Live Aid cause. Three hundred phone lines were manned by the BBC, so that members of the public could make donations using their credit cards. The phone number and an address that viewers could send cheques to were repeated every twenty minutes.


title: Live Aid

text: Nearly seven hours into the concert in London, Bob Geldof enquired how much money had been raised so far; he was told about £1.2 million. He is said to have been sorely disappointed by the amount and marched to the BBC commentary position. Pumped up further by a performance by Queen which he later called "absolutely amazing", Geldof gave an interview in which BBC presenter David Hepworth had attempted to provide a postal address to which potential donations could be sent; Geldof interrupted him in mid-flow and shouted "Fuck the address, let's get the numbers". Although the phrase "give us your fucking money" has passed into folklore, Geldof has stated that it was never uttered. "Private Eye" magazine made great humorous capital out of this outburst, emphasising Geldof's Irish accent which meant the profanities were heard as "fock" or "focking". After the outburst, donations increased to £300 per second.


title: Live Aid

text: Later in the evening, following David Bowie's set, a video shot by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was shown to the audiences in London and Philadelphia, as well as on televisions around the world (though neither US feed showed the film), showing starving and diseased Ethiopian children set to "Drive" by The Cars. (This would also be shown at the London Live 8 concert in 2005.) The rate of donations became faster in the aftermath of the video. Geldof had previously refused to allow the video to be shown, due to time constraints, and had only relented when Bowie offered to drop the song "Five Years" from his set as a trade-off.


title: Live Aid

text: Geldof mentioned during the concert that the Republic of Ireland gave the most donations per capita, despite being in the midst of a serious economic recession. The largest donation came from Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, who was part of the ruling family of Dubai, who donated £1m in a phone conversation with Geldof. The next day, news reports stated that between £40 and £50 million had been raised. It is now estimated that around £150 million in total has been raised for famine relief as a direct result of the concerts.


title: Live Aid

text: Bob Dylan's performance generated controversy; while transitioning from "Ballad of Hollis Brown" to "When the Ship Comes In," he said: "I hope that some of the money ... maybe they can just take a little bit of it, maybe ... one or two million, maybe ... and use it, say, to pay the mortgages on some of the farms and, the farmers here, owe to the banks". He is often misquoted, as on the Farm Aid website, as saying: "Wouldn't it be great if we did something for our own farmers right here in America?". In his autobiography, "Is That It?" (published in 1986), Geldof was critical of the remark, saying "He displayed a complete lack of understanding of the issues raised by Live Aid. ... Live Aid was about people losing their lives. There is a radical difference between losing your livelihood and losing your life. It did instigate Farm Aid, which was a good thing in itself, but it was a crass, stupid, and nationalistic thing to say." Although Dylan's comments were criticised, his remark inspired fellow musicians Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp to organise the Farm Aid charity, which held its first concert in September 1985. The concert raised over $9 million for America's family farmers and became an annual event.


title: Live Aid

text: Geldof was not happy about the Hooters being added as the opening band in Philadelphia. He felt pressured into it by Graham and local promoter Larry Magid. Magid, promoting the concert through Electric Factory Concerts, argued that the band was popular in Philadelphia; their first major label album "Nervous Night" had been released almost three months earlier and had been a hit. In an interview for "Rolling Stone", Geldof asked: "Who the fuck are the Hooters?" Ironically, in December 2004, Geldof appeared on the bill with the Hooters in Germany as "their" opening act.


title: Live Aid

text: Adam Ant subsequently criticised the event and expressed regrets about playing it, saying, "I was asked by Sir Bob [sic] to promote this concert. They had no idea they could sell it out. Then in Bob's book he said, 'Adam was over the hill so I let him have one number.' ... Doing that show was the biggest fucking mistake in the world. Knighthoods were made, Bono got it made, and it was a waste of fucking time. It was the end of rock 'n' roll." Geldof stated in his autobiography that Miles Copeland, manager of Adam Ant and Sting, asked Geldof if he had thought of asking Ant after Geldof contacted him to get Sting to appear: "I hadn't. I thought he was a bit passé. But then so were the Boomtown Rats, and each represented a certain piece of pop history, so I agreed. I also thought that might entice him to encourage Sting, or perhaps all three of the Police."


title: Live Aid

text: BBC coverage co-host Andy Kershaw was heavily critical of the event in his autobiography "No Off Switch", stating, "Musically, Live Aid was to be entirely predictable and boring. As they were wheeled out – or rather bullied by Geldof into playing – it became clear that this was another parade of the same old rock aristocracy in a concert for Africa, organised by someone who, while advertising his concern for, and sympathy with, the continent didn't see fit to celebrate or dignify the place by including on the Live Aid bill a single African performer." Kershaw also described the event as "irritating, shallow, sanctimonious and self-satisfied" for failing to confront the fundamental causes of the famine and being "smug in its assumption that a bunch of largely lamentable rock and pop floozies was capable of making a difference, without tackling simultaneously underlying problems".


title: Live Aid

text: Led Zeppelin performed for the first time since the death of their drummer John Bonham in 1980. Two drummers filled in for Bonham: Phil Collins, who had played on singer Robert Plant's first two solo albums, and Tony Thompson. The performance was criticised for Plant's hoarse vocals, Jimmy Page's intoxication and out-of-tune guitar, a lack of rehearsal, and poorly functioning monitors. Plant described the performance as "a fucking atrocity for us ... It made us look like loonies."


title: Live Aid

text: Page later criticised Collins' performance, saying: "Robert told me Phil Collins wanted to play with us. I told him that was all right if he knows the numbers. But at the end of the day, he didn't know anything. We played 'Whole Lotta Love', and he was just there bashing away cluelessly and grinning. I thought that was really a joke." Collins responded: "It wasn't my fault it was crap... If I could have walked off, I would have. But then we'd all be talking about why Phil Collins walked off Live Aid – so I just stuck it out... I turned up and I was a square peg in a round hole. Robert was happy to see me, but Jimmy wasn't."


title: Live Aid

text: Led Zeppelin have blocked broadcasts of the performance and withheld permission for it to be included on the DVD release. "Philadelphia" named it "one of the worst rock-and-roll reunions of all time", with Victor Fiorillo writing: "I'd like to be able to blame all of the awfulness on anaemic Phil Collins, who sat in on drums, and Page himself later fingered the Genesis drummer for screwing up the set. But Collins was just the beginning of the bad. Go ahead. Watch and remember. It really "was" that terrible."


title: Live Aid

text: In 1986, "Spin" published an exposé on Live Aid's actions in Ethiopia. They claimed that Geldof deliberately ignored warnings from Médecins Sans Frontières, who had complained directly to Geldof even before Live Aid, about the role of the Ethiopian government under Derg leader Mengistu Haile Mariam in causing the famine and that by working with Mengistu directly, much of the relief funds intended for victims were in fact siphoned off to purchase arms from the Soviet Union, thereby exacerbating the situation. Geldof responded by deriding both the articles and Médecins Sans Frontières, who had been expelled from the country, and reportedly saying, "I'll shake hands with the Devil on my left and on my right to get to the people we are meant to help".


title: Live Aid

text: According to the BBC World Service, a certain proportion of the funds were siphoned off to buy arms for the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front. This coalition battled at the time against Derg. The Band Aid Trust complained to the BBC Editorial Complaints Unit regarding the specific allegations in the BBC World Service documentary, and their complaint was upheld. In 2010 the BBC issued an apology to the Trust and stated there was no evidence money had been diverted, while the former British Ambassador to Ethiopia, Brian Barder, states, "the diversion of aid related only to the tiny proportion that was supplied by some NGOs to rebel-held areas."


title: Live Aid

text: Although a professed admirer of Geldof's generosity and concern, American television commentator Bill O'Reilly was critical of the Live Aid's oversight of the use of the funds raised. O'Reilly believed that charity organizations, operating in aid-receiving countries, should control donations, rather than "chaotic nations." Arguing that Live Aid accomplished good ends while inadvertently causing harm at the same time, David Rieff gave a presentation of similar concerns in "The Guardian" at the time of Live 8.


title: Live Aid

text: Tim Russert, in an interview on "Meet the Press" shortly after O'Reilly's comments, addressed these concerns to Bono. Bono responded that corruption, not disease or famine, was the greatest threat to Africa, agreeing with the belief that foreign relief organisations should decide how the money is spent. On the other hand, Bono said that it was better to spill some funds into nefarious quarters for the sake of those who needed it than to stifle aid because of possible theft.


title: Live Aid

text: Bruce Springsteen decided not to appear at Live Aid despite his huge global popularity in 1985. Geldof had originally scheduled the event for 6 July, but moved the date to the 13th especially to accommodate Springsteen. Springsteen later expressed regret at turning down Geldof's invitation, stating that he "simply did not realise how big the whole thing was going to be" and regretted not performing an acoustic set.


title: Live Aid

text: Michael Jackson declined to appear. His press agent, Norman Winter, released a statement at the time saying that Jackson was "working around the clock in the studio on a project that he's made a major commitment to," and consequently could not free up sufficient time to rehearse and perform at Live Aid. Winter added, "Michael is just about living in the studio, rehearsing and recording. I know, what could be more major than Live Aid, but Michael couldn't turn his back on his responsibility to the people he's working with. This affected employment for a lot of people."


title: Live Aid

text: Prince also declined to appear in person, but sent a pre-taped video of an acoustic version of "4 the Tears in Your Eyes", which was played during the concert in Philadelphia. The original version appears on the "We Are the World" album, while the video version was released in 1993 on Prince's compilation "The Hits/The B-Sides".


title: Live Aid

text: Culture Club leader Boy George decided not to take part in the concert. He feared that Culture Club would fail to measure up performing for two billion people, and he disliked what he viewed as self-important posturing on the part of other participants. In his memoir "Take It Like a Man" he said his band members were angry with him because he had "ruined their chance of a part in history".


title: Live Aid

text: Huey Lewis and the News were scheduled to play the Philadelphia leg, and were in some of the promotional material, but decided on 28 June to pull out over concerns that the money raised by relief efforts thus far had not been reaching those it was intended to help. "It was a very tough decision", Lewis told "Rolling Stone". "We felt, having done the USA for Africa thing, that we should wait and watch that ... The prudent thing to do is to see how that money translates into food for the people before we do another one." Harry Belafonte, who had organised USA for Africa, responded harshly, calling Lewis's scepticism "disruptive and divisive". He had himself recently returned from a trip to Africa to see how the money had so far been spent, and suggested that Lewis do the same. "For him to sit back here and send out information based on hearsay is unfair to his colleagues and very unfair to the victims."


title: Live Aid

text: Annie Lennox, whose hits as the vocalist of Eurythmics included 1983's "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)", was forced to pull out of performing at Live Aid due to a serious throat infection; she appeared at Live 8 held in Hyde Park, London in 2005.


title: Live Aid

text: Cliff Richard later stated he had been unable to perform as he was already committed to a gospel charity concert in Birmingham the same day.


title: Live Aid

text: A reunited Deep Purple were also due to appear from Switzerland via satellite, but pulled out after guitarist Ritchie Blackmore refused to take part. Deep Purple (minus Blackmore, who left the band in 1993) appeared at Geldof's Live 8 sequel 20 years later, performing at the Toronto leg of the event. Bill Graham is said to have turned down Foreigner and Yes because there was no free space on the bill for them.


title: Live Aid

text: Marillion, riding high in the UK charts that summer with their "Misplaced Childhood" album and "Kayleigh" single, missed out on an invitation to perform at Wembley because their manager had deemed it not worthwhile for singer Fish to participate in the "Do They Know It's Christmas?" single. Fish was quoted: "When it came to the bill for the concert we were passed over."


title: Live Aid

text: UB40 lead singer Ali Campbell admitted that his band was also ignored by Geldof while planning the list of musical acts of the British leg of the event: "We weren't asked to do Live Aid because Uncle Bob didn't like our music much. It was a great gig, but I thought it was a bit dodgy not having any black acts on the bill when it was raising money for Africa."


title: Live Aid

text: Thin Lizzy keyboard player Darren Wharton expressed regrets about the band not being asked to perform: "That was a tragic, tragic decision. It could've been and it should've been the turning point for Phil (Lynott). And I think that really did Phil in quite a lot, that we were never asked to play. I mean Phil, he had a few problems at the time, but at the end of the day, if he would've been asked to play Live Aid, that would've been a goal for him to clean himself up to do that gig. We were all very upset of the fact that we weren't asked to do it because Phil knew Geldof and Midge Ure very well indeed. I was surprised that we weren't asked to do that. I don't think Phil ever forgave Bob." Lynott died less than five months after the concert, from complications associated with his drug and alcohol addictions.


title: Live Aid

text: "I tried to pitch into Live Aid," recalled Roger Waters, "They asked me to put Pink Floyd back together for it and I said no, but I'd bring my new band to play. They didn't want that. But that's alright. I went along on my own." Waters appeared backstage at the Wembley Stadium leg of Live Aid (where he was interviewed), and the classic Pink Floyd lineup reunited for the follow up to Live Aid, Live 8, in 2005.


title: Live Aid

text: Neil Peart, drummer of Canadian rock band Rush said: "Geddy was involved with the "Northern Lights" charity record here in Canada, although Rush weren't invited to participate in the Live Aid event—mainly because if you look at the guest list, it was very much an 'in-crowd' situation. We were 'out' by then. We didn't refuse to take part because of any principles. Mind you, I wouldn't have been happy being part of this scenario. Those stars should have shut up and just given over their money if they were genuine. I recall that Tears for Fears, who made a musical and artistic decision to pull out of the concert, were subsequently accused by Geldof of killing children in Africa—what a shockingly irresponsible and stupid attitude to take. But I have nothing bad whatsoever to say about Bob Geldof; he sacrificed his health, his career, everything for something he believed in. But others around him got involved for their own reasons. Some of those involved in "Northern Lights" were actually quoted as saying that their managers told them to get down to the recording sessions because it would be a good career move!"


title: Live Aid

text: When organiser Bob Geldof was persuading artists to take part in the concert, he promised them that it would be a one-off event, never to be seen again. That was the reason why the concert was never recorded in its complete original form, and only secondary television broadcasts were recorded. Following Geldof's request, ABC erased its own broadcast tapes. However, before the syndicated/ABC footage was erased, copies of it were donated to the Smithsonian Institution and have now been presumed lost. The ABC feed of the USA for Africa/"We Are The World" finale does exist in its entirety, complete with the network end credits, and can be found as a supplemental feature on the "We Are The World: The Story Behind The Song" DVD.


title: Live Aid

text: Meanwhile, MTV decided to keep recordings of its broadcast and eventually located more than 100 tapes of Live Aid in its archives, but many songs in these tapes were cut short by MTV's ad breaks and presenters (according to the BBC). Many performances from the US were not shown on the BBC, and recordings of these performances are missing. There were four separate Audio Trucks in Philadelphia provided by David Hewitt of Remote Recording Services. ABC had taken the decision that no multi track tape recordings would be allowed, so no remixing of the Philadelphia show was possible.


title: Live Aid

text: An official four-disc DVD set of the Live Aid concerts was released on 8 November 2004. A premiere to launch the new DVD was held on 7 November and shown in DTS surround sound featuring a short compilation of the four-disc set. The screening was held at the Odeon Cinema in Kensington, London and included guests such as Brian May, Anita Dobson, Roger Taylor, Bob Geldof and partner Jean Marie, Annie Lennox, Midge Ure, Michael Buerk, Gary Kemp and The Darkness. Other theatrical premieres were held in Zurich, Milan, Rome, Vienna, Hamburg and Berlin. A 52-minute compilation was later released as a limited edition DVD in July 2005 titled "20 Years Ago Today: Live Aid". The box set contains 10-hour partial footage of the 16-hour length concert. The DVD was produced by Geldof's company, Woodcharm Ltd., and distributed by Warner Music Vision. The DVD has since been out of print and no longer available in stores. The decision to finally release it was taken by Bob Geldof nearly 20 years after the original concerts, after he found a number of unlicensed copies of the concert on the Internet.


title: Live Aid

text: The most complete footage that exists is used from the BBC source, and this was the main source of the DVD. During production on the official DVD, MTV lent Woodcharm Ltd. their B-roll and alternate camera footage where MTV provided extra footage of the Philadelphia concert (where ABC had erased the tapes from the command of Bob Geldof). Songs that were not originally interrupted with advertisements were also used on the official DVD.


title: Live Aid

text: Working from the BBC and MTV footage, several degrees of dramatic licence were taken, to release the concert on DVD. Many songs had their soundtracks altered for the DVD release, mainly in sequences where there were originally microphone problems. In one of those instances, Paul McCartney had re-recorded his failed vocals for "Let It Be" in a studio the day after the concert (14 July 1985). Beatles biographer Keith Badman explains, "because of what happened, he decided to re-record his vocals for any future film of the concert. That's the version you'll hear when the DVD comes out." Also, in the US finale, the original USA for Africa studio track for "We Are the World" was overlaid in places where the microphone was absent (consequently, it includes the vocals of Kenny Rogers and James Ingram, two artists who did not even take part in Live Aid).


title: Live Aid

text: Some artists did not want their performances to be featured on the DVD. At their own request, Led Zeppelin and Santana were omitted. The former defended their decision not to be included on the grounds that their performance was "sub-standard", but to lend their support, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant pledged to donate proceeds from the DVD release of "Page & Plant: No Quarter" to the campaign, and John Paul Jones pledged proceeds from his American tour with Mutual Admiration Society.


title: Live Aid

text: Judicious decisions were also made on which acts would be included and which ones would not, due to either technical difficulties in the original performances, the absence of original footage, or for music rights reasons. Rick Springfield, the Four Tops, the Hooters, the Power Station, Billy Ocean and Kool and the Gang were among those acts that were left off the DVD. Several artists who did feature on the DVD also had songs that were performed omitted. Madonna performed three solo songs in the concert, but only two were included on the DVD ("Love Makes the World Go Round" was omitted). Phil Collins played "Against All Odds" and "In the Air Tonight" at both Wembley and JFK, but only the London performance of the former and the Philadelphia performance of the latter were included on the DVD. The JFK performance of "Against All Odds" was later included on Collins' "Finally ... The First Farewell Tour" DVD. Tom Petty performed four songs, and only two were included on DVD. Patti LaBelle played six songs but only two songs were included.


title: Live Aid

text: In 2007, Queen released a special edition of "Queen Rock Montreal" on Blu-ray and DVD formats containing their 1981 concert from The Forum in Montreal, Canada, and their complete Live Aid performance, along with Freddie Mercury and Brian May performing "Is This the World We Created...?" from the UK Live Aid finale, all re-mixed in DTS 5.1 sound by Justin Shirley-Smith. Also included is their Live Aid rehearsal, and an interview with the band, from earlier in the week.


title: Live Aid

text: On its release, the then British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, decided the VAT collected on sales of the Live Aid DVD would be given back to the charity, which would raise an extra £5 for every DVD sold.


title: Live Aid

text: On 14 November 2004, the DVD entered the UK Official Music Video Chart at number one and stayed in the top position for twelve consecutive weeks.


title: Live Aid

text: An audio copy of Live Aid was officially released by the Band Aid Trust label on 7 September 2018 on digital download. When first released in 2018, the Queen performance was excluded. The band's set was, however, later included as a part of the digital download in May 2019. It has a total of ninety-three audio tracks.


title: Live Aid

text: On 12 September 2018, YouTube launched the Official Live Aid channel with a total of 87 videos from the Live Aid 1985 concert. According to the channel, all earnings from viewings go to the Band Aid Trust. As with the digital download release, a few notable performances are not included for unknown reasons, although Queen's set was uploaded to the channel with its inclusion on the digital download.


title: Live Aid

text: Because the Live Aid broadcast was watched by 1.5 billion people, most of the footage was recorded on home consumer video recorders all around the world, in various qualities. Many of these recordings were in mono, because in the mid-1980s most home video machines could only record mono sound, and also because the European BBC TV broadcast was in mono. The US MTV broadcast, the ABC Radio Network and BBC Radio 1 simulcasts were stereo. These recordings circulated among collectors, and in recent years, have also appeared on the Internet in file sharing networks.


title: Live Aid

text: Since the official DVD release of Live Aid includes only partial footage of this event, unofficial distribution sources continue to be the only source of the most complete recordings of this event. The official DVD is the only authorised video release in which proceeds go directly to famine relief, the cause that the concert was originally intended to help.


title: Live Aid

text: Live Aid eventually raised $127 million ($350 million in 2022 terms) in famine relief for African nations, and the publicity it generated encouraged Western nations to make available enough surplus grain to end the immediate hunger crisis in Africa. According to one aid worker, a larger impact than the money raised for the Ethiopian famine is that "humanitarian concern is now at the centre of foreign policy" for the west.


title: Live Aid

text: Regarding Buerk's landmark BBC News report as a watershed moment in crisis reporting that influenced modern coverage—one that was broadcast in its entirety with Buerk's narration on a major US channel—Suzanne Franks in "The Guardian" states, "the nexus of politics, media and aid are influenced by the coverage of a famine 30 years ago."


title: Live Aid

text: Many artists and performers at Live Aid gained prominence and positive commercial influence. For all the cultural, charitable, and technological significance of 1985's Live Aid, its most immediate impact was on the charts. In the UK, for example, "No Jacket Required" by Phil Collins and Madonna's "Like a Virgin" leapt back into the top ten. Queen's three-year-old "Greatest Hits" rose fifty-five places into the top twenty, followed by Freddie Mercury's "Mr. Bad Guy". Every U2 album available at the time also returned to the chart. In 1986, Geldof received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for his efforts. Claire Bertschinger, the nurse who featured in Buerk's news reports that sparked the aid relief movement, received the Florence Nightingale Medal in 1991 for her work in nursing, and was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 2010 for "services to Nursing and to International Humanitarian Aid".


title: Live Aid

text: Queen's performance at Live Aid was later recreated in the band's biographical film "Bohemian Rhapsody" in 2018. Footage from the original performance can be seen to match very accurately with the movie performance. In 2020, Queen + Adam Lambert reprised the original Queen setlist from Live Aid for the Fire Fight Australia charity concert in Sydney, Australia.


title: Live Aid

text: The background to the staging of the concert as a whole was dramatised in the 2010 television drama "When Harvey Met Bob".


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Nicolaus Copernicus (; ; , ; 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon, who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its center. In all likelihood, Copernicus developed his model independently of Aristarchus of Samos, an ancient Greek astronomer who had formulated such a model some eighteen centuries earlier.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: The publication of Copernicus's model in his book "" ("On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres"), just before his death in 1543, was a major event in the history of science, triggering the Copernican Revolution and making a pioneering contribution to the Scientific Revolution.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Copernicus was born and died in Royal Prussia, a region that had been part of the Kingdom of Poland since 1466. A polyglot and polymath, he obtained a doctorate in canon law and was a mathematician, astronomer, physician, classics scholar, translator, governor, diplomat, and economist. From 1497 he was a Warmian Cathedral chapter canon. In 1517 he derived a quantity theory of money—a key concept in economics—and in 1519 he formulated an economic principle that later came to be called Gresham's law.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Nicolaus Copernicus was born on 19 February 1473 in the city of Toruń (Thorn), in the province of Royal Prussia, in the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: His father was a merchant from Kraków and his mother was the daughter of a wealthy Toruń merchant. Nicolaus was the youngest of four children. His brother Andreas (Andrew) became an Augustinian canon at Frombork (Frauenburg). His sister Barbara, named after her mother, became a Benedictine nun and, in her final years, prioress of a convent in Chełmno (Kulm); she died after 1517. His sister Katharina married the businessman and Toruń city councilor Barthel Gertner and left five children, whom Copernicus looked after to the end of his life. Copernicus never married and is not known to have had children, but from at least 1531 until 1539 his relations with Anna Schilling, a live-in housekeeper, were seen as scandalous by two bishops of Warmia who urged him over the years to break off relations with his "mistress".


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Copernicus's father's family can be traced to a village in Silesia between Nysa ("Neiße") and Prudnik ("Neustadt"). The village's name has been variously spelled Kopernik, Copernik, Copernic, Kopernic, Coprirnik, and today Koperniki.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: In the 14th century, members of the family began moving to various other Silesian cities, to the Polish capital, Kraków (1367), and to Toruń (1400). The father, Mikołaj the Elder, likely the son of Jan, came from the Kraków line.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Nicolaus was named after his father, who appears in records for the first time as a well-to-do merchant who dealt in copper, selling it mostly in Danzig (Gdańsk). He moved from Kraków to Toruń around 1458. Toruń, situated on the Vistula River, was at that time embroiled in the Thirteen Years' War, in which the Kingdom of Poland and the Prussian Confederation, an alliance of Prussian cities, gentry and clergy, fought the Teutonic Order over control of the region. In this war, Hanseatic cities like Danzig and Toruń, Nicolaus Copernicus's hometown, chose to support the Polish King, Casimir IV Jagiellon, who promised to respect the cities' traditional vast independence, which the Teutonic Order had challenged. Nicolaus's father was actively engaged in the politics of the day and supported Poland and the cities against the Teutonic Order. In 1454 he mediated negotiations between Poland's Cardinal Zbigniew Oleśnicki and the Prussian cities for repayment of war loans. In the Second Peace of Thorn (1466), the Teutonic Order formally relinquished all claims to its western province, which as Royal Prussia remained a region of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland until the First (1772) and Second (1793) Partitions of Poland.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Copernicus's father married Barbara Watzenrode, the astronomer's mother, between 1461 and 1464. He died about 1483.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Nicolaus's mother, Barbara Watzenrode, was the daughter of a wealthy Toruń patrician and city councillor, Lucas Watzenrode the Elder (deceased 1462), and Katarzyna (widow of Jan Peckau), mentioned in other sources as "Katarzyna Rüdiger gente Modlibóg" (deceased 1476). The Modlibógs were a prominent Polish family who had been well known in Poland's history since 1271. The Watzenrode family, like the Kopernik family, had come from Silesia from near Świdnica (Schweidnitz), and after 1360 had settled in Toruń. They soon became one of the wealthiest and most influential patrician families. Through the Watzenrodes' extensive family relationships by marriage, Copernicus was related to wealthy families of Toruń (Thorn), Gdańsk (Danzig) and Elbląg (Elbing), and to prominent Polish noble families of Prussia: the Czapskis, Działyńskis, Konopackis and Kościeleckis. Lucas and Katherine had three children: Lucas Watzenrode the Younger (1447–1512), who would become Bishop of Warmia and Copernicus's patron; Barbara, the astronomer's mother (deceased after 1495); and Christina (deceased before 1502), who in 1459 married the Toruń merchant and mayor, Tiedeman von Allen.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Lucas Watzenrode the Elder, a wealthy merchant and in 1439–62 president of the judicial bench, was a decided opponent of the Teutonic Knights. In 1453 he was the delegate from Toruń at the Grudziądz (Graudenz) conference that planned the uprising against them. During the ensuing Thirteen Years' War, he actively supported the Prussian cities' war effort with substantial monetary subsidies (only part of which he later re-claimed), with political activity in Toruń and Danzig, and by personally fighting in battles at Łasin (Lessen) and Malbork (Marienburg). He died in 1462.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Lucas Watzenrode the Younger, the astronomer's maternal uncle and patron, was educated at the University of Kraków (now Jagiellonian University) and at the universities of Cologne and Bologna. He was a bitter opponent of the Teutonic Order, and its Grand Master once referred to him as "the devil incarnate". In 1489 Watzenrode was elected Bishop of Warmia (Ermeland, Ermland) against the preference of King Casimir IV, who had hoped to install his own son in that seat. As a result, Watzenrode quarreled with the king until Casimir IV's death three years later. Watzenrode was then able to form close relations with three successive Polish monarchs: John I Albert, Alexander Jagiellon, and Sigismund I the Old. He was a friend and key advisor to each ruler, and his influence greatly strengthened the ties between Warmia and Poland proper. Watzenrode came to be considered the most powerful man in Warmia, and his wealth, connections and influence allowed him to secure Copernicus's education and career as a canon at Frombork Cathedral.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Upon his father's death, young Nicolaus's maternal uncle, Lucas Watzenrode the Younger (1447–1512), took the boy under his wing and saw to his education and career. Watzenrode maintained contacts with leading intellectual figures in Poland and was a friend of the influential Italian-born humanist and Kraków courtier Filippo Buonaccorsi. There are no surviving primary documents on the early years of Copernicus's childhood and education. Copernicus biographers assume that Watzenrode first sent young Copernicus to St. John's School, at Toruń, where he himself had been a master. Later, according to Armitage, the boy attended the Cathedral School at Włocławek, up the Vistula River from Toruń, which prepared pupils for entrance to the University of Kraków, Watzenrode's alma mater in Poland's capital.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: In the winter semester of 1491–92 Copernicus, as "Nicolaus Nicolai de Thuronia", matriculated together with his brother Andrew at the University of Kraków (now Jagiellonian University). Copernicus began his studies in the Department of Arts (from the fall of 1491, presumably until the summer or fall of 1495) in the heyday of the Kraków astronomical-mathematical school, acquiring the foundations for his subsequent mathematical achievements. According to a later but credible tradition (Jan Brożek), Copernicus was a pupil of Albert Brudzewski, who by then (from 1491) was a professor of Aristotelian philosophy but taught astronomy privately outside the university; Copernicus became familiar with Brudzewski's widely read commentary to Georg von Peuerbach's "Theoricæ novæ planetarum" and almost certainly attended the lectures of Bernard of Biskupie and Wojciech Krypa of Szamotuły, and probably other astronomical lectures by Jan of Głogów, Michał of Wrocław (Breslau), Wojciech of Pniewy, and Marcin Bylica of Olkusz.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Copernicus's Kraków studies gave him a thorough grounding in the mathematical astronomy taught at the university (arithmetic, geometry, geometric optics, cosmography, theoretical and computational astronomy) and a good knowledge of the philosophical and natural-science writings of Aristotle ("De coelo", "Metaphysics") and Averroes, stimulating his interest in learning and making him conversant with humanistic culture. Copernicus broadened the knowledge that he took from the university lecture halls with independent reading of books that he acquired during his Kraków years (Euclid, Haly Abenragel, the "Alfonsine Tables", Johannes Regiomontanus' "Tabulae directionum"); to this period, probably, also date his earliest scientific notes, now preserved partly at Uppsala University. At Kraków Copernicus began collecting a large library on astronomy; it would later be carried off as war booty by the Swedes during the Deluge in the 1650s and is now at the Uppsala University Library.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Copernicus's four years at Kraków played an important role in the development of his critical faculties and initiated his analysis of logical contradictions in the two "official" systems of astronomy—Aristotle's theory of homocentric spheres, and Ptolemy's mechanism of eccentrics and epicycles—the surmounting and discarding of which would be the first step toward the creation of Copernicus's own doctrine of the structure of the universe.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Without taking a degree, probably in the fall of 1495, Copernicus left Kraków for the court of his uncle Watzenrode, who in 1489 had been elevated to Prince-Bishop of Warmia and soon (before November 1495) sought to place his nephew in the Warmia canonry vacated by 26 August 1495 death of its previous tenant, Jan Czanow. For unclear reasons—probably due to opposition from part of the chapter, who appealed to Rome—Copernicus's installation was delayed, inclining Watzenrode to send both his nephews to study canon law in Italy, seemingly with a view to furthering their ecclesiastic careers and thereby also strengthening his own influence in the Warmia chapter.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: On 20 October 1497, Copernicus, by proxy, formally succeeded to the Warmia canonry which had been granted to him two years earlier. To this, by a document dated 10 January 1503 at Padua, he would add a sinecure at the Collegiate Church of the Holy Cross and St. Bartholomew in Wrocław (at the time in the Crown of Bohemia). Despite having been granted a papal indult on 29 November 1508 to receive further benefices, through his ecclesiastic career Copernicus not only did not acquire further prebends and higher stations (prelacies) at the chapter, but in 1538 he relinquished the Wrocław sinecure. It is unclear whether he was ever ordained a priest. Edward Rosen asserts that he was not. Copernicus did take minor orders, which sufficed for assuming a chapter canonry. The "Catholic Encyclopedia" proposes that his ordination was probable, as in 1537 he was one of four candidates for the episcopal seat of Warmia, a position that required ordination.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Meanwhile, leaving Warmia in mid-1496—possibly with the retinue of the chapter's chancellor, Jerzy Pranghe, who was going to Italy—in the fall, possibly in October, Copernicus arrived in Bologna and a few months later (after 6 January 1497) signed himself into the register of the Bologna University of Jurists' "German nation", which included young Poles from Silesia, Prussia and Pomerania as well as students of other nationalities.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: During his three-year stay at Bologna, which occurred between fall 1496 and spring 1501, Copernicus seems to have devoted himself less keenly to studying canon law (he received his doctorate in canon law only after seven years, following a second return to Italy in 1503) than to studying the humanities—probably attending lectures by Filippo Beroaldo, Antonio Urceo, called Codro, Giovanni Garzoni, and Alessandro Achillini—and to studying astronomy. He met the famous astronomer Domenico Maria Novara da Ferrara and became his disciple and assistant. Copernicus was developing new ideas inspired by reading the "Epitome of the Almagest" ("Epitome in Almagestum Ptolemei") by George von Peuerbach and Johannes Regiomontanus (Venice, 1496). He verified its observations about certain peculiarities in Ptolemy's theory of the Moon's motion, by conducting on 9 March 1497 at Bologna a memorable observation of the occultation of Aldebaran, the brightest star in the Taurus constellation, by the moon. Copernicus the humanist sought confirmation for his growing doubts through close reading of Greek and Latin authors (Pythagoras, Aristarchos of Samos, Cleomedes, Cicero, Pliny the Elder, Plutarch, Philolaus, Heraclides, Ecphantos, Plato), gathering, especially while at Padua, fragmentary historic information about ancient astronomical, cosmological and calendar systems.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Copernicus spent the jubilee year 1500 in Rome, where he arrived with his brother Andrew that spring, doubtless to perform an apprenticeship at the Papal Curia. Here, too, however, he continued his astronomical work begun at Bologna, observing, for example, a lunar eclipse on the night of 5–6 November 1500. According to a later account by Rheticus, Copernicus also—probably privately, rather than at the Roman "Sapienza"—as a ""Professor Mathematum"" (professor of astronomy) delivered, "to numerous... students and... leading masters of the science", public lectures devoted probably to a critique of the mathematical solutions of contemporary astronomy.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: On his return journey doubtless stopping briefly at Bologna, in mid-1501 Copernicus arrived back in Warmia. After on 28 July receiving from the chapter a two-year extension of leave in order to study medicine (since "he may in future be a useful medical advisor to our Reverend Superior [Bishop Lucas Watzenrode] and the gentlemen of the chapter"), in late summer or in the fall he returned again to Italy, probably accompanied by his brother Andrew and by Canon Bernhard Sculteti. This time he studied at the University of Padua, famous as a seat of medical learning, and—except for a brief visit to Ferrara in May–June 1503 to pass examinations for, and receive, his doctorate in canon law—he remained at Padua from fall 1501 to summer 1503.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Copernicus studied medicine probably under the direction of leading Padua professors—Bartolomeo da Montagnana, Girolamo Fracastoro, Gabriele Zerbi, Alessandro Benedetti—and read medical treatises that he acquired at this time, by Valescus de Taranta, Jan Mesue, Hugo Senensis, Jan Ketham, Arnold de Villa Nova, and Michele Savonarola, which would form the embryo of his later medical library.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: One of the subjects that Copernicus must have studied was astrology, since it was considered an important part of a medical education. However, unlike most other prominent Renaissance astronomers, he appears never to have practiced or expressed any interest in astrology.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: As at Bologna, Copernicus did not limit himself to his official studies. It was probably the Padua years that saw the beginning of his Hellenistic interests. He familiarized himself with Greek language and culture with the aid of Theodorus Gaza's grammar (1495) and Johannes Baptista Chrestonius's dictionary (1499), expanding his studies of antiquity, begun at Bologna, to the writings of Bessarion, Lorenzo Valla, and others. There also seems to be evidence that it was during his Padua stay that the idea finally crystallized, of basing a new system of the world on the movement of the Earth.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: As the time approached for Copernicus to return home, in spring 1503 he journeyed to Ferrara where, on 31 May 1503, having passed the obligatory examinations, he was granted the degree of Doctor of Canon Law ("Nicolaus Copernich de Prusia, Jure Canonico ... et doctoratus"). No doubt it was soon after (at latest, in fall 1503) that he left Italy for good to return to Warmia.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Copernicus made three observations of Mercury, with errors of −3, −15 and −1 minutes of arc. He made one of Venus, with an error of −24 minutes. Four were made of Mars, with errors of 2, 20, 77, and 137 minutes. Four observations were made of Jupiter, with errors of 32, 51, −11 and 25 minutes. He made four of Saturn, with errors of 31, 20, 23 and −4 minutes.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: With Novara, Copernicus observed an occultation of Aldebaran by the moon on 9 March 1497. Copernicus also observed a conjunction of Saturn and the moon on 4 March 1500. He saw an eclipse of the moon on 6 November 1500.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Having completed all his studies in Italy, 30-year-old Copernicus returned to Warmia, where he would live out the remaining 40 years of his life, apart from brief journeys to Kraków and to nearby Prussian cities: Toruń (Thorn), Gdańsk (Danzig), Elbląg (Elbing), Grudziądz (Graudenz), Malbork (Marienburg), Königsberg (Królewiec).


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: The Prince-Bishopric of Warmia enjoyed substantial autonomy, with its own diet (parliament) and monetary unit (the same as in the other parts of Royal Prussia) and treasury.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Copernicus was his uncle's secretary and physician from 1503 to 1510 (or perhaps till his uncle's death on 29 March 1512) and resided in the Bishop's castle at Lidzbark (Heilsberg), where he began work on his heliocentric theory. In his official capacity, he took part in nearly all his uncle's political, ecclesiastic and administrative-economic duties. From the beginning of 1504, Copernicus accompanied Watzenrode to sessions of the Royal Prussian diet held at Malbork and Elbląg and, write Dobrzycki and Hajdukiewicz, "participated... in all the more important events in the complex diplomatic game that ambitious politician and statesman played in defense of the particular interests of Prussia and Warmia, between hostility to the [Teutonic] Order and loyalty to the Polish Crown."


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: In 1504–12 Copernicus made numerous journeys as part of his uncle's retinue—in 1504, to Toruń and Gdańsk, to a session of the Royal Prussian Council in the presence of Poland's King Alexander Jagiellon; to sessions of the Prussian diet at Malbork (1506), Elbląg (1507) and Sztum (Stuhm) (1512); and he may have attended a Poznań (Posen) session (1510) and the coronation of Poland's King Sigismund I the Old in Kraków (1507). Watzenrode's itinerary suggests that in spring 1509 Copernicus may have attended the Kraków sejm.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: It was probably on the latter occasion, in Kraków, that Copernicus submitted for printing at Jan Haller's press his translation, from Greek to Latin, of a collection, by the 7th-century Byzantine historian Theophylact Simocatta, of 85 brief poems called Epistles, or letters, supposed to have passed between various characters in a Greek story. They are of three kinds—"moral," offering advice on how people should live; "pastoral", giving little pictures of shepherd life; and "amorous", comprising love poems. They are arranged to follow one another in a regular rotation of subjects. Copernicus had translated the Greek verses into Latin prose, and he now published his version as "Theophilacti scolastici Simocati epistolae morales, rurales et amatoriae interpretatione latina", which he dedicated to his uncle in gratitude for all the benefits he had received from him. With this translation, Copernicus declared himself on the side of the humanists in the struggle over the question of whether Greek literature should be revived. Copernicus's first poetic work was a Greek epigram, composed probably during a visit to Kraków, for Johannes Dantiscus' epithalamium for Barbara Zapolya's 1512 wedding to King Zygmunt I the Old.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Some time before 1514, Copernicus wrote an initial outline of his heliocentric theory known only from later transcripts, by the title (perhaps given to it by a copyist), "Nicolai Copernici de hypothesibus motuum coelestium a se constitutis commentariolus"—commonly referred to as the "Commentariolus". It was a succinct theoretical description of the world's heliocentric mechanism, without mathematical apparatus, and differed in some important details of geometric construction from "De revolutionibus"; but it was already based on the same assumptions regarding Earth's triple motions. The "Commentariolus", which Copernicus consciously saw as merely a first sketch for his planned book, was not intended for printed distribution. He made only a very few manuscript copies available to his closest acquaintances, including, it seems, several Kraków astronomers with whom he collaborated in 1515–30 in observing eclipses. Tycho Brahe would include a fragment from the "Commentariolus" in his own treatise, "Astronomiae instauratae progymnasmata", published in Prague in 1602, based on a manuscript that he had received from the Bohemian physician and astronomer Tadeáš Hájek, a friend of Rheticus. The "Commentariolus" would appear complete in print for the first time only in 1878.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: In 1510 or 1512 Copernicus moved to Frombork, a town to the northwest at the Vistula Lagoon on the Baltic Sea coast. There, in April 1512, he participated in the election of Fabian of Lossainen as Prince-Bishop of Warmia. It was only in early June 1512 that the chapter gave Copernicus an "external curia"—a house outside the defensive walls of the cathedral mount. In 1514 he purchased the northwestern tower within the walls of the Frombork stronghold. He would maintain both these residences to the end of his life, despite the devastation of the chapter's buildings by a raid against Frauenburg carried out by the Teutonic Order in January 1520, during which Copernicus's astronomical instruments were probably destroyed. Copernicus conducted astronomical observations in 1513–16 presumably from his external curia; and in 1522–43, from an unidentified "small tower" ("turricula"), using primitive instruments modeled on ancient ones—the quadrant, triquetrum, armillary sphere. At Frombork Copernicus conducted over half of his more than 60 registered astronomical observations.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Having settled permanently at Frombork, where he would reside to the end of his life, with interruptions in 1516–19 and 1520–21, Copernicus found himself at the Warmia chapter's economic and administrative center, which was also one of Warmia's two chief centers of political life. In the difficult, politically complex situation of Warmia, threatened externally by the Teutonic Order's aggressions (attacks by Teutonic bands; the Polish-Teutonic War of 1519–21; Albert's plans to annex Warmia), internally subject to strong separatist pressures (the selection of the prince-bishops of Warmia; currency reform), he, together with part of the chapter, represented a program of strict cooperation with the Polish Crown and demonstrated in all his public activities (the defense of his country against the Order's plans of conquest; proposals to unify its monetary system with the Polish Crown's; support for Poland's interests in the Warmia dominion's ecclesiastic administration) that he was consciously a citizen of the Polish-Lithuanian Republic. Soon after the death of uncle Bishop Watzenrode, he participated in the signing of the Second Treaty of Piotrków Trybunalski (7 December 1512), governing the appointment of the Bishop of Warmia, declaring, despite opposition from part of the chapter, for loyal cooperation with the Polish Crown.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: That same year (before 8 November 1512) Copernicus assumed responsibility, as "magister pistoriae", for administering the chapter's economic enterprises (he would hold this office again in 1530), having already since 1511 fulfilled the duties of chancellor and visitor of the chapter's estates.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: His administrative and economic duties did not distract Copernicus, in 1512–15, from intensive observational activity. The results of his observations of Mars and Saturn in this period, and especially a series of four observations of the Sun made in 1515, led to the discovery of the variability of Earth's eccentricity and of the movement of the solar apogee in relation to the fixed stars, which in 1515–19 prompted his first revisions of certain assumptions of his system. Some of the observations that he made in this period may have had a connection with a proposed reform of the Julian calendar made in the first half of 1513 at the request of the Bishop of Fossombrone, Paul of Middelburg. Their contacts in this matter in the period of the Fifth Lateran Council were later memorialized in a complimentary mention in Copernicus's dedicatory epistle in "Dē revolutionibus orbium coelestium" and in a treatise by Paul of Middelburg, "Secundum compendium correctionis Calendarii" (1516), which mentions Copernicus among the learned men who had sent the Council proposals for the calendar's emendation.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: During 1516–21, Copernicus resided at Olsztyn (Allenstein) Castle as economic administrator of Warmia, including Olsztyn (Allenstein) and Pieniężno (Mehlsack). While there, he wrote a manuscript, "Locationes mansorum desertorum" ("Locations of Deserted Fiefs"), with a view to populating those fiefs with industrious farmers and so bolstering the economy of Warmia. When Olsztyn was besieged by the Teutonic Knights during the Polish–Teutonic War, Copernicus directed the defense of Olsztyn and Warmia by Royal Polish forces. He also represented the Polish side in the ensuing peace negotiations.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Copernicus for years advised the Royal Prussian sejmik on monetary reform, particularly in the 1520s when that was a major question in regional Prussian politics. In 1526 he wrote a study on the value of money, "Monetae cudendae ratio". In it he formulated an early iteration of the theory, now called Gresham's law, that "bad" (debased) coinage drives "good" (un-debased) coinage out of circulation—several decades before Thomas Gresham. He also, in 1517, set down a quantity theory of money, a principal concept in economics to the present day. Copernicus's recommendations on monetary reform were widely read by leaders of both Prussia and Poland in their attempts to stabilize currency.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: In 1533, Johann Widmanstetter, secretary to Pope Clement VII, explained Copernicus's heliocentric system to the Pope and two cardinals. The Pope was so pleased that he gave Widmanstetter a valuable gift. In 1535 Bernard Wapowski wrote a letter to a gentleman in Vienna, urging him to publish an enclosed almanac, which he claimed had been written by Copernicus. This is the only mention of a Copernicus almanac in the historical records. The "almanac" was likely Copernicus's tables of planetary positions. Wapowski's letter mentions Copernicus's theory about the motions of the earth. Nothing came of Wapowski's request, because he died a couple of weeks later.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Following the death of Prince-Bishop of Warmia Mauritius Ferber (1 July 1537), Copernicus participated in the election of his successor, Johannes Dantiscus (20 September 1537). Copernicus was one of four candidates for the post, written in at the initiative of Tiedemann Giese; but his candidacy was actually "pro forma", since Dantiscus had earlier been named coadjutor bishop to Ferber and since Dantiscus had the backing of Poland's King Sigismund I. At first Copernicus maintained friendly relations with the new Prince-Bishop, assisting him medically in spring 1538 and accompanying him that summer on an inspection tour of Chapter holdings. But that autumn, their friendship was strained by suspicions over Copernicus's housekeeper, Anna Schilling, whom Dantiscus banished from Frombork in spring 1539.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: In his younger days, Copernicus the physician had treated his uncle, brother and other chapter members. In later years he was called upon to attend the elderly bishops who in turn occupied the see of Warmia—Mauritius Ferber and Johannes Dantiscus—and, in 1539, his old friend Tiedemann Giese, Bishop of Chełmno (Kulm). In treating such important patients, he sometimes sought consultations from other physicians, including the physician to Duke Albert and, by letter, the Polish Royal Physician.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: In the spring of 1541, Duke Albert—former Grand Master of the Teutonic Order who had converted the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights into a Lutheran and hereditary realm, the Duchy of Prussia, upon doing homage to his uncle, the King of Poland, Sigismund I—summoned Copernicus to Königsberg to attend the Duke's counselor, George von Kunheim, who had fallen seriously ill, and for whom the Prussian doctors seemed unable to do anything. Copernicus went willingly; he had met von Kunheim during negotiations over reform of the coinage. And Copernicus had come to feel that Albert himself was not such a bad person; the two had many intellectual interests in common. The Chapter readily gave Copernicus permission to go, as it wished to remain on good terms with the Duke, despite his Lutheran faith. In about a month the patient recovered, and Copernicus returned to Frombork. For a time, he continued to receive reports on von Kunheim's condition, and to send him medical advice by letter.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Some of Copernicus's close friends turned Protestant, but Copernicus never showed a tendency in that direction. The first attacks on him came from Protestants. Wilhelm Gnapheus, a Dutch refugee settled in Elbląg, wrote a comedy in Latin, "Morosophus" (The Foolish Sage), and staged it at the Latin school that he had established there. In the play, Copernicus was caricatured as the eponymous Morosophus, a haughty, cold, aloof man who dabbled in astrology, considered himself inspired by God, and was rumored to have written a large work that was moldering in a chest.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Nevertheless, in 1551, eight years after Copernicus's death, astronomer Erasmus Reinhold published, under the sponsorship of Copernicus's former military adversary, the Protestant Duke Albert, the "Prussian Tables", a set of astronomical tables based on Copernicus's work. Astronomers and astrologers quickly adopted it in place of its predecessors.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Some time before 1514 Copernicus made available to friends his "Commentariolus" ("Little Commentary"), a manuscript describing his ideas about the heliocentric hypothesis. It contained seven basic assumptions (detailed below). Thereafter he continued gathering data for a more detailed work.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: At about 1532 Copernicus had basically completed his work on the manuscript of "Dē revolutionibus orbium coelestium"; but despite urging by his closest friends, he resisted openly publishing his views, not wishing—as he confessed—to risk the scorn "to which he would expose himself on account of the novelty and incomprehensibility of his theses."


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: In 1533, Johann Albrecht Widmannstetter delivered a series of lectures in Rome outlining Copernicus's theory. Pope Clement VII and several Catholic cardinals heard the lectures and were interested in the theory. On 1 November 1536, Cardinal Nikolaus von Schönberg, Archbishop of Capua, wrote to Copernicus from Rome:


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: By then Copernicus's work was nearing its definitive form, and rumors about his theory had reached educated people all over Europe. Despite urgings from many quarters, Copernicus delayed publication of his book, perhaps from fear of criticism—a fear delicately expressed in the subsequent dedication of his masterpiece to Pope Paul III. Scholars disagree on whether Copernicus's concern was limited to possible astronomical and philosophical objections, or whether he was also concerned about religious objections.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Copernicus was still working on "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" (even if not certain that he wanted to publish it) when in 1539 Georg Joachim Rheticus, a Wittenberg mathematician, arrived in Frombork. Philipp Melanchthon, a close theological ally of Martin Luther, had arranged for Rheticus to visit several astronomers and study with them. Rheticus became Copernicus's pupil, staying with him for two years and writing a book, "Narratio prima" (First Account), outlining the essence of Copernicus's theory. In 1542 Rheticus published a treatise on trigonometry by Copernicus (later included as chapters 13 and 14 of Book I of "De revolutionibus").


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Under strong pressure from Rheticus, and having seen the favorable first general reception of his work, Copernicus finally agreed to give "De revolutionibus" to his close friend, Tiedemann Giese, bishop of Chełmno (Kulm), to be delivered to Rheticus for printing by the German printer Johannes Petreius at Nuremberg ("Nürnberg"), Germany. While Rheticus initially supervised the printing, he had to leave Nuremberg before it was completed, and he handed over the task of supervising the rest of the printing to a Lutheran theologian, Andreas Osiander.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Osiander added an unauthorised and unsigned preface, defending Copernicus's work against those who might be offended by its novel hypotheses. He argued that "different hypotheses are sometimes offered for one and the same motion [and therefore] the astronomer will take as his first choice that hypothesis which is the easiest to grasp." According to Osiander, "these hypotheses need not be true nor even probable. [I]f they provide a calculus consistent with the observations, that alone is enough."


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Toward the close of 1542, Copernicus was seized with apoplexy and paralysis, and he died at age 70 on 24 May 1543. Legend has it that he was presented with the final printed pages of his "Dē revolutionibus orbium coelestium" on the very day that he died, allowing him to take farewell of his life's work. He is reputed to have awoken from a stroke-induced coma, looked at his book, and then died peacefully.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Copernicus was reportedly buried in Frombork Cathedral, where a 1580 epitaph stood until being defaced; it was replaced in 1735. For over two centuries, archaeologists searched the cathedral in vain for Copernicus's remains. Efforts to locate them in 1802, 1909, 1939 had come to nought. In 2004 a team led by Jerzy Gąssowski, head of an archaeology and anthropology institute in Pułtusk, began a new search, guided by the research of historian Jerzy Sikorski. In August 2005, after scanning beneath the cathedral floor, they discovered what they believed to be Copernicus's remains.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: The discovery was announced only after further research, on 3 November 2008. Gąssowski said he was "almost 100 percent sure it is Copernicus". Forensic expert Capt. Dariusz Zajdel of the Polish Police Central Forensic Laboratory used the skull to reconstruct a face that closely resembled the features—including a broken nose and a scar above the left eye—on a Copernicus self-portrait. The expert also determined that the skull belonged to a man who had died around age 70—Copernicus's age at the time of his death.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: The grave was in poor condition, and not all the remains of the skeleton were found; missing, among other things, was the lower jaw. The DNA from the bones found in the grave matched hair samples taken from a book owned by Copernicus which was kept at the library of the University of Uppsala in Sweden.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: On 22 May 2010 Copernicus was given a second funeral in a Mass led by Józef Kowalczyk, the former papal nuncio to Poland and newly named Primate of Poland. Copernicus's remains were reburied in the same spot in Frombork Cathedral where part of his skull and other bones had been found. A black granite tombstone now identifies him as the founder of the heliocentric theory and also a church canon. The tombstone bears a representation of Copernicus's model of the Solar System—a golden Sun encircled by six of the planets.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Philolaus (c. 470 – c. 385 BCE) described an astronomical system in which a Central Fire (different from the Sun) occupied the centre of the universe, and a counter-Earth, the Earth, Moon, the Sun itself, planets, and stars all revolved around it, in that order outward from the centre. Heraclides Ponticus (387–312 BCE) proposed that the Earth rotates on its axis.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Aristarchus of Samos (c. 310 BCE – c. 230 BCE) was the first to advance a theory that the earth orbited the sun. Further mathematical details of Aristarchus's heliocentric system were worked out around 150 BCE by the Hellenistic astronomer Seleucus of Seleucia. Though Aristarchus's original text has been lost, a reference in Archimedes' book "The Sand Reckoner" ("Archimedis Syracusani Arenarius & Dimensio Circuli") describes a work by Aristarchus in which he advanced the heliocentric model. Thomas Heath gives the following English translation of Archimedes's text:


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: In an early unpublished manuscript of "De Revolutionibus" (which still survives), Copernicus mentioned the (non-heliocentric) 'moving Earth' theory of Philolaus and the possibility that Aristarchus also had a 'moving Earth' theory (though it is unlikely that he was aware that it was a heliocentric theory). He removed both references from his final published manuscript.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Copernicus was probably aware that Pythagoras's system involved a moving Earth. The Pythagorean system was mentioned by Aristotle.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Copernicus owned a copy of Giorgio Valla's "De expetendis et fugiendis rebus", which included a translation of Plutarch's reference to Aristarchus's heliostaticism.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: In Copernicus's dedication of "On the Revolutions" to Pope Paul III—which Copernicus hoped would dampen criticism of his heliocentric theory by "babblers... completely ignorant of [astronomy]"—the book's author wrote that, in rereading all of philosophy, in the pages of Cicero and Plutarch he had found references to those few thinkers who dared to move the Earth "against the traditional opinion of astronomers and almost against common sense."


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: The prevailing theory during Copernicus's lifetime was the one that Ptolemy published in his "Almagest" ; the Earth was the stationary center of the universe. Stars were embedded in a large outer sphere that rotated rapidly, approximately daily, while each of the planets, the Sun, and the Moon were embedded in their own, smaller spheres. Ptolemy's system employed devices, including epicycles, deferents and equants, to account for observations that the paths of these bodies differed from simple, circular orbits centered on the Earth.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Beginning in the 10th century, a tradition criticizing Ptolemy developed within Islamic astronomy, which climaxed with Ibn al-Haytham of Basra's "Al-Shukūk 'alā Baṭalamiyūs" ("Doubts Concerning Ptolemy"). Several Islamic astronomers questioned the Earth's apparent immobility, and centrality within the universe. Some accepted that the earth rotates around its axis, such as Abu Sa'id al-Sijzi (d. ). According to al-Biruni, al-Sijzi invented an astrolabe based on a belief held by some of his contemporaries "that the motion we see is due to the Earth's movement and not to that of the sky." That others besides al-Sijzi held this view is further confirmed by a reference from an Arabic work in the 13th century which states: According to the geometers [or engineers] ("muhandisīn"), the earth is in constant circular motion, and what appears to be the motion of the heavens is actually due to the motion of the earth and not the stars. In the 12th century, Nur ad-Din al-Bitruji proposed a complete alternative to the Ptolemaic system (although not heliocentric). He declared the Ptolemaic system as an imaginary model, successful at predicting planetary positions, but not real or physical. Al-Bitruji's alternative system spread through most of Europe during the 13th century, with debates and refutations of his ideas continued up to the 16th century.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Mathematical techniques developed in the 13th to 14th centuries by Mo'ayyeduddin al-Urdi, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, and Ibn al-Shatir for geocentric models of planetary motions closely resemble some of those used later by Copernicus in his heliocentric models. Copernicus used what is now known as the Urdi lemma and the Tusi couple in the same planetary models as found in Arabic sources. Furthermore, the exact replacement of the equant by two epicycles used by Copernicus in the "Commentariolus" was found in an earlier work by Ibn al-Shatir (d. c. 1375) of Damascus. Ibn al-Shatir's lunar and Mercury models are also identical to those of Copernicus. This has led some scholars to argue that Copernicus must have had access to some yet to be identified work on the ideas of those earlier astronomers. However, no likely candidate for this conjectured work has yet come to light, and other scholars have argued that Copernicus could well have developed these ideas independently of the late Islamic tradition. Nevertheless, Copernicus cited some of the Islamic astronomers whose theories and observations he used in "De Revolutionibus", namely al-Battani, Thabit ibn Qurra, al-Zarqali, Averroes, and al-Bitruji.


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Copernicus's major work on his heliocentric theory was "Dē revolutionibus orbium coelestium" ("On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres"), published in the year of his death, 1543. He had formulated his theory by 1510. "He wrote out a short overview of his new heavenly arrangement [known as the "Commentariolus", or "Brief Sketch"], also probably in 1510 [but no later than May 1514], and sent it off to at least one correspondent beyond Varmia [the Latin for "Warmia"]. That person in turn copied the document for further circulation, and presumably the new recipients did, too..."


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Copernicus's "Commentariolus" summarized his heliocentric theory. It listed the "assumptions" upon which the theory was based, as follows:


title: Nicolaus Copernicus

text: Georg Joachim Rheticus could have been Copernicus's successor, but did not rise to the occasion. Erasmus Reinhold could have been his successor, but died prematurely. The first of the great successors was Tycho Brahe (though he did not think the Earth orbited the Sun), followed by Johannes Kepler, who had collaborated with Tycho in Prague and benefited from Tycho's decades' worth of detailed observational data.