Italian mathematician and astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi was born #OTD in 1746.
Piazzi’s achievements include the compilation of two star catalogues ("Praecipuarum Stellarum Inerrantium Positiones Mediae In Coelo") as well as the discovery of the large proper motion of the star 61 Cygni. However, Piazzi is probably best remembered for his discovery, on 1 Jan 1801, of Ceres, the largest of the minor planets and the first to be located.