Attached Link: http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/andrew_white/Chapter3.html#II

http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/Writings/Illuminati.html The Illuminati was founded by a Bavarian, in Bavaria, 135 years after Galileo died, and the exact same year Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence. It got banned in Bavaria too. There's certainly some evidence that some members of the the Illuminati emigrated to America (Adam Weishaupt stayed in Germany however), but that's mostly because the Bavarian government banned the group and exiled the founder. Became too popular for the Catholic church to stand, and the members a bit enthused over Enlightenment ideals, which caused more than a few monarchs to shiver, shake, and eventually lose their cushy "divine right" jobs. But people come up with all kinds of "founding" myths. The reality is that the Illuminati didn't exist before Adam Weishaupt founded it. Not to mention that Galileo is an Italian, and the Bavarian Illuminati ... was exactly that, Bavarian, based in Bavaria, in Southern Germany. Its true that there were 'secret societies' before that, many of the followers being influenced by Pythagorean mysticism, "music of the spheres" and all that jazz. Its why Copernicus was proposing his heliocentric theories, about the planets revolving around the Sun, which turned out to be somewhat true (actually the planet orbits are slightly elliptical), but not for the reasons Copernicus was proposing them. I've provided a link about Heliocentric theory so that some of you may be "illuminated" by a little correct history. Its really got nothing to do with world domination, and everything to do with keeping your head attached to your neck in an era when the church had a lot more power to muzzle a scientist that dared discover something that went against their "truth".