The gravitational problem of three bodies in its traditional sense dates in substance from 1687, when Isaac Newton published his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, when Newton was trying to figure out if any long term stability is possible, especially the system of our Earth, the Moon, and the Sun. He was guided under the major Renaissance astronomers Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler to the beginning of the gravitational three-body problem. In Proposition 66 of Book 1 of the Principia, and its 22 Corollaries, Newton took the first steps in the definition and study of the problem of the movements of three massive bodies subject to their mutually perturbing gravitational attractions. In Propositions 25 to 35 of Book 3, Newton also took the first steps in applying his results of Proposition 66 to the lunar theory, the motion of the Moon under the gravitational influence of Earth and the Sun. Later, this problem was also applied to other planets' interactions with the Earth and the Sun.