In this work we present the original ideas and the construction of the rigid bodies theory realised
by Leonhard Euler between 1738 and 1775. The number of treatises written by Euler on this subject is
enormous, including the most notorious Scientia Navalis (1749), Decouverte d ’ un noveau principe de
mecanique (1752), Du mouvement de rotation des corps solides autour d ’ un axe variable (1765),
Theoria motus corporum solidorum seu rigidorum (1765) and Nova methodus motu corporum rigidorum
determinandi (1776), in which he developed the ideas of the instantaneous rotation axis, the
so-called Euler equations and angles, the components of what is now known as the inertia tensor, the
principal axes of inertia, and, finally, the generalisation of the translation and rotation movement
equations for any system.