Johannes Kepler: A Brief Biography

Johannes Kepler was born on December 27, 1571, in the town of Weil der Stadt, Württemberg, in the Holy Roman Empire of German Nationality. His parents were Heinrich and Katharina Kepler, who were Lutherans. At the time of his birth, Johannes was an only child. He would be followed by two brothers, a sister, and three more children who didn’t live to adulthood. His surviving siblings were named Heinrich, Christoph, and Margarete.
In 1574, Kepler contracted smallpox. Luckily for him, the disease didn’t kill him. It did, however, leave him with crippled hands and poor vision. This obviously made it more difficult to be an astronomer later on.
In 1575, Kepler and his family moved to the nearby town of Leonberg. In 1577, Kepler’s mother took him

The school at which the professor taught went looking for a successor. Tübingen University ordered Kepler to take the post because he was no longer being devotedly Lutheran. He left for Graz in March 1594.
Kepler published his first book, Mysterium Cosmographicum (The Cosmographic Mystery) in 1596. He claimed he had an epiphany on July 19, 1595 while teaching in Graz. In the book, Kepler stated that one could use each of the five Platonic solids to determine the trajectories of other planets and the distances between other planets.
On April 27, 1597, Kepler married Barbara Müller. Barbara was the daughter of a wealthy landowner who had already been married and widowed twice. She brought a young daughter, Regina, to the marriage. Together they would have five children in total. Their first two children, Heinrich (1598) and Susanna (1599), both died as infants. Their other children were Susanna (1602), Friedrich (1604), and Ludwig (1607).
In December 1597, Kepler sent a copy of Mysterium Cosmographicum to Tycho Brahe, a Danish-born mathematician. Tycho replied to Kepler with a letter as soon as he got the book, praising Kepler’s genius but condemning Kepler’s admiration of Ursus (another mathematician who published a book claiming Brahe’s ideas as his

Kepler, who was born Lutheran, was given little more than six weeks to leave. If Kepler had agreed to convert to Catholicism (which he didn’t), he might not have been expelled from the city.
Also while Kepler was in Graz, Ursus (Brahe’s enemy) died. This allowed Brahe to trust Kepler more, since he no longer had to worry about his data and ideas being stolen.
After Kepler was kicked out of Graz, he floated around central Europe, not staying anywhere for notable periods of time. He was allowed to return to Graz in April 1601 to settle things after his father-in-law died, but wouldn’t return to Prague until August the same year.
Soon after Kepler returned to Prague, Tycho Brahe died on October 24, 1601 after refusing to excuse himself from a formal dinner to urinate. Two days after Brahe’s death, Kepler was appointed as the Imperial Mathematician (Brahe’s former position). This meant Kepler now had access to all of Brahe’s measurements.
Although Kepler had a good case for killing Brahe, these theories are not true. The mercury found in Brahe’s corpse’s hair was not enough to kill him. It’s possible the mercury got there because Brahe took it to help his bladder problem, or because he was an “enthusiastic” alchemist and it simply built up over time (Love,