In the same way that artificial satellites revolve around the earth due to the gravitational force of our planet, the planets revolve around the sun.  This fact which nowadays seems trivial, took many centuries to become established.

   From ancient Greece to the Rennaissance period, the opinion of the wise men tended towards a geocentric universe, with all the heavenly bodies revolving around the earth.  Starting from the work of Copernicus and Galileo, and with a great many difficulties, the heliocentric model began to dominate, and the sun moved to the centre of the system.

   In the following visual, you can see the most advanced of the geocentric models, Tycho Brahe's, and the heliocentric model of Copernicus.