Hans Lippershey was a Dutch/German tradesperson who fashioned eye glasses for a living. Lippershey created and designed the first telescope, and then patented it in 1608. The first telescopes could only magnify objects 3x closer than the naked eye. The telescope turned out to be one of the most important inventions of the 15th century because Galileo Galilei built upon the original design to create the field of astronomy which lead to groundbreaking new discoveries about the solar system and Earths place within the cosmos