Galileo Galilei
An astronomer and physicist, the first to turn a telescope on the sky: the moons of Jupiter, the phases of Venus and mountains on the Moon destroyed the idea of unchanging heavens. His defence of the Copernican system brought him before the Inquisition in 1633, to recantation and to house arrest for the rest of his life, where he wrote his chief work on mechanics.
Born in Pisa on 25 February 1564 by the present reckoning (15 February in the Julian calendar) at about 16:00 local mean time. The hour is given consistently in astrological references, but it traces to later biographies rather than to a document, and should be taken with that reservation.