The ancient people believed that the stars, the moon and the sun rotates around the earth to account for the occurrence of day and night time. Its no wonder because that's the appearance of things-direct observation affirms.
But some of the ancient Greeks begun to question this accepted fact. They argued that these three well-observed heavenly bodies: the stars, the moon, and the sun all revolved around the earth, then, the moon being closest should be moving the slowest, the sun next and the stars the fastest for being the farthest from earth in order to account their setting and rising simultaneously every twenty four hours. But, a pushed of scientific enquiry in which the ancient Greeks were used to, gradually revealed that it was impossible for the above argument to be the true working of nature. The idea with the stars gyrating so fast so they can catch up the moon and the sun was plain unlikely. Instead, it was the earth spinning on its axis they argued. And for that, explaining the observed facts of the simultaneous setting and rising of these bodies became easy.
To clarify the idea, take note of your point of location on earth. For instance at 7m of that day, you saw the stars and the moon appeared in their relative location. Notice that at 7 pm the next day they reappeared simultaneously; an observation so easily explained with the earth rotating rather than those millions of miles separated bodies revolving around earth, only to arrive at the same scene at the same time.
With the advent of Sir Isaac Newton and his Universal Law of Gravitation, the earth was found to be spinning on its axis at a rate of 455 m/s, about half a kilometer per second. Why does this fast motion of the earth since its existence is never felt? Well, one of the laws of nature known as Newton's First Law of Motion in Physics stipulated no difference between a body at rest and the other one in constant motion. They're absolutely the same. For that reason, we never felt earth's fast rotation for it is constant; the very similar experience in elevators ascending and descending at constant speed where the motion is only felt at the instant of stopping because it has decelerated, thus a non - uniform speed.
Without the earth moving at a uniform rate, then we are not here in the first place. The oceans and the every possible creatures will be thrown into outer space like passengers on a bus thrown forward at sudden application of the brakes. All life forms will likely all die if the earth is not turning either. One of the hemispheres is all night, thus more hostile than the north pole or south pole. In contrast, the other hemisphere is all day, thus more hostile than the hottest desert known.
We somehow owed our existence on this planet for having its uniform rate of rotational motion.
