Geocentric model Geocentric model In astronomy, the geocentric model (also known as geocentrism, or the Ptolemaic system) is a superseded description of the Universe with Earth at the center. Under the geocentric model, the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets all orbited Earth. The geocentric model served as the predominant description of the cosmos in many ancient civilizations, such as those of Aristotle and Ptolemy. Two observations supported the idea that Earth was the center of the Universe. First, from anywhere on Earth, the Sun appears to revolve around Earth once per day. While the Moon and the planets have their own motions,
Hottentot (racial term) "hodmandod" in the years around 1700. The reduced Afrikaans/Dutch form "hotnot" has also been borrowed into South African English as an offensive term for black people. In seventeenth-century Dutch, "Hottentot" was at times used to denote all black people (synonymously with "Kaffir"), but at least some speakers were careful to use the term "Hottentot" to denote what they thought of as a race distinct from the supposedly darker-skinned "Kaffirs". This distinction between the non-Bantu "Cape Blacks" and the Bantu was noted as early as 1684 by French anthropologist François Bernier. The idea that "Hottentot" referred strictly to the non-Bantu peoples