Short answers, pulled from the story.
Anaximander proposed a cosmology where Earth stood as a section of a pillar at the center of everything. Sun, Moon, and planets appeared as holes in invisible wheels surrounding this central cylinder.
Claudius Ptolemy standardized geocentrism in the 2nd century AD with his work on planetary motion. His system used deferent and epicycle spheres to account for seasonal differences and retrograde motion.
The invention of the telescope in 1609 enabled Galileo Galilei to observe dark spots on the Moon revealing craters. These observations contradicted Aristotle's belief in perfect celestial bodies composed of aether.
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel measured parallax of star 61 Cygni successfully in 1838. This measurement disproved Ptolemy's claim that parallax motion did not exist.
Polls conducted by Gallup in 1990 found 18 percent Americans held sun revolves around Earth belief. The same survey recorded 16 percent Germans and 19 percent Britons holding this view.