He waited until he was dying to publish that Earth isn't the center of the universe

Nicolaus Copernicus worked out a mathematical model with the Sun, not Earth, at the center decades before it appeared in print. Legend holds he received the first printed copy of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium on his deathbed in 1543, after decades of hesitation over the backlash it might bring.

— Nicolaus Copernicus, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium — 1543