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For over two thousand years Euclid was the accepted authority for geometry. In fact, in England the terms “reading geometry” and “reading Euclid” were considered synonymous. The learned Greek mathematician founded his geometry upon a set of axioms whence he derived all his theorems. These axioms, or truths, he derived from his own experiences, being unable to prove any of them. There was one which subsequent mathematicians did not consider self-evident, and which they tried fruitlessly for centuries to prove. It is a long, involved declaration which is equivalent to the statement that “through a point outside a line, only one parallel can be drawn to the line,” and is universally known as the “eleventh axiom of parallels.”