Long ago, people believed that the gods made the weather. Gods were responsible for the sun shining, the wind blowing, and the rain falling. Until the mid-1500s, most people had little or no understanding of how the weather worked. Galileo Galilei built the first thermometer in the early 1600s. Later inventors later created ways to measure and record the temperature more accurately. Today weather scientists called meteorologists study and report the weather. For more information on weather, read Investigating Storms, another book in the Mission: Science series.