Poland - 500th Anniversary - Birth of Mikolaj Kopernik, Scientist
1973Proof Silver 100 Zlotych 32mm (16.35 grams) 0.625 Silver (0.3316 oz. ASW)
Reference: Y# 68
POLSKA RZECZPOSPOLITA LUDOWA mw · ZŁ 100 ZŁ ·; year. Eagle with wings open within circle.
NIKOŁAJ KOPERNIK Head of Mikolaj Kopernik 1/4 left. You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.  Nicolaus Copernicus; German: Nikolaus Kopernikus; 19 February 1473- 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at the center of the universe. The publication of this model in his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) just before his death in 1543 is considered[by whom?] a major event in the history of science, triggering the Copernican Revolution and making an important contribution to the Scientific Revolution.
Copernicus was born and died in Royal Prussia, a region that had been a part of the Kingdom of Poland since 1466. He was a polyglot and polymath who obtained a doctorate in canon law and also practiced as a physician, classics scholar, translator, governor, diplomat, and economist. Like the rest of his family, he was a third-order Dominican. In 1517 he derived a quantity theory of money -a key concept in economics- and in 1519 he formulated a version of what later became known as Greshams law.   Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine and Belarus to the east; and the Baltic Sea, Kaliningrad Oblast (a Russian exclave) and Lithuania to the north. The total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres (120,726sqmi), making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe and the sixth most populous member of the European Union, as well as the most populous post-communist member of the European Union. Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions.
The establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a longstanding political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th-century Europe. The Commonwealth ceased to exist in the years 1772-1795, when its territory was partitioned among Prussia, the Russian Empire, and Austria. Poland regained its independence (as the Second Polish Republic) at the end of World War I, in 1918. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasions of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact). More than six million Polish citizens died in the war. In 1944, a Soviet-backed Polish Committee of National Liberation was formed which, after a falsified referendum in 1947 took control of the country and Poland became a satellite state of the Soviet Union, as Peoples Republic of Poland. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy.  Despite the large number of casualties and destruction the country experienced during World War II, Poland managed to preserve much of its cultural wealth. There are 14 heritage sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage and 54 Historical Monuments and many objects of cultural heritage in Poland.
Since the beginning of the transition to a primarily market-based economy that took place in the early 1990s, Poland has achieved a "very high" ranking on the Human Development Index, as well as gradually improving economic freedom. Poland is a democratic country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life and a very high standard of living. Moreover, the country is visited by nearly 16 million tourists every year (2013), which makes it one of the most visited countries in the world. Poland is the sixth largest economy in the European Union and among the fastest rising economic states in the world. The country is the sole member nation of the European Union to have escaped a decline in GDP and in recent years was able to "create probably the most varied GDP growth in its history" according to OANDA, a Canadian-based foreign exchange company. Furthermore, according to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is one of the safest countries in the world to live in. |
