Before Galileo

John Philoponus tested Aristotle's claim that the heavier body fell faster in proportion to its weight. He died about 570AD. If Aristotle was right about air rushing around a spear to push it from behind, "then soldiers need not launch projectiles. They could perch them on a thin wall and set the air in motion behind them with bellows and watch them fly off."

Why not drop bodies of different weights and see whether Aristotle's prediction was correct. As early as 1544, the historian Benedetto Varchi referred to actual tests, which showed that it was not.

Simon Stevin explained the Moon's attraction made the tides--a point which Galileo got wrong.

Albrecht of Saxony described a thought experiment in the 14th century in which he imagined two equal-sized falling bodies attached by a string, and then mentally cutting the string. It was absurd to imagine the two separate bodies would suddenly decelerate to half speed.. This thought experiment is also attributed to Galileo, quite a bit later.

The textbooks leave a lot out.

What brought this little essay on was the Quillette article A Celebration of Errors, in which they attribute the debunking of Aristotle's theory of motion to Galileo. He came to the party a little late.