This day in history...

On January 7, 1610 in a letter to his patron, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, astronomer Galileo Galilei reports his discovery of 3 moons orbiting the planet Jupiter. Improvements he had made to his telescope a month earlier allowed him to first observe these heavenly bodies, which he at first thought were stars. On January 10, he found a fourth moon of Jupiter, and proposed naming them the Medician moons, after the Grand Duke and his brothers. At roughly the same time, German astronomer Simon Marius published works claiming to have discovered the same four moons. His work was later denounced as having plagiarized Galileo, yet it is Marius' suggestion for the names of these bodies - Io, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto - that has been accepted by the scientific community. They are the first satellites not orbiting Earth to have been observed. (composite image shows the four moons (from top to bottom; Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto) in scale with Jupiter)


On January 7, 1973, Mark Essex, a former US Navy enlisted man with ties to the Black Panthers, enters the parking garage of the Downtown Howard Johnson hotel in New Orleans. A week earlier, Essex had staked out a New Orleans police station and shot 3 officers, 2 fatally. On the 7th, as he entered the hotel armed with a .44 Magnum and a rifle, he allegedly told 3 African American employees he encountered not to worry, that he was "only shooting whites today." Essex entered several vacant rooms and started fires, then proceeded to the upper floors, where he began firing at firefighters and police responding to the fire calls. Essex eventually made his way to the roof where, about 28 hours after the siege began, he was shot and killed by a police marksman in a helicopter flown (unauthorized) by a USMC pilot from the Naval Reserve base in the area. In the two days of combined attacks, Essex had killed 9 people and wounded 12, two of whom died about two months later. Essex had grown up in Emporia, KS, a community with a history of racial harmony, which a police sociologist later suggested left Essex ill prepared to deal with the bigotry he encountered in adulthood. (the commentary in the report below is incorrect; Essex acted alone. Also, I was a preteen growing up on nola's west bank when this occurred. I watched much of it unfold on live local TV. A neighbor was a local newspaper photographer and won a Pulitzer Prize for his photos of the siege.)


On January 7, 1948, Thomas Mantell, a captain in the Kentucky Air National Guard, dies in a crash while pursuing a supposed UFO. Mantell put his P-51 Mustang in a steep climb and exceeded the plane's altitude envelope, causing him to black out. It is one of the first and more well publicized early incidents of the UFO scare of the mid-20th century. In the 1950's the Air Force official UFO investigative effort - Project Blue Book - determined that Mantell was in fact tracking a high altitude Navy weather balloon. At least, that's the official explanation. (P-51's of Mantell's 165th Fighter Squadron)

 

Meant to add the following yesterday, but I got busy at work and never got back to it. It is a repeat from last year:

On January 7, 2020, the music world loses perhaps the greatest rock drummer of all time, with the death of Neil Peart from glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. He was 67 years old. Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Peart was managing the parts department of his father's tractor supply store in 1974 when he auditioned for an up-and-coming Toronto band called Rush. Peart felt the audition was a disaster, but band members Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson disagreed, and the trio performed live together for the first time a couple of weeks later. Peart quickly was designated the band's lyricist, drawing on his love of literature to write epic sci-fi and mythology-based songs that would earn Rush a reputation of being "too nerdy" to be considered cool. But Peart's skill was undeniable; the readers of Modern Drummer would vote him best rock drummer 7 years in a row in the 1980's and twice more in the 2000's. Drum! magazine would also name him drummer of the year 4 times in the 2000's By the band's retirement in 2015, the members of Rush had been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Order of Canada (knighthood). Peart also authored 11 books, 4 fiction and 7 non-fiction.
10 Times Neil Peart Was the Best Drummer on Earth - YouTube

 

On January 8, 1877, a band of Lakota Indians under Chief Crazy Horse fights a losing battle against U.S. Cavalry along the Tongue River in Montana. Following Little Big Horn 6 months before, the Army assigned General Nelson Miles to bring the various Plains tribes to heel. Miles employed a combination of force and diplomacy to get most tribes to capitulate, but two forces - a combined Sioux/Cheyenne band following Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse' tribe - continued to resist. Sitting Bull's followers escaped into Canada, but Miles tracked Crazy Horse to the Tongue River, where he achieved a victory in a raging blizzard. Though Crazy Horse himself and many of his followers escaped, this battle was the last straw, and he would surrender the following May at Ft. Robinson, Nebraska. (the Crazy Horse Monument being carved in the Black Hills. His head is 87 feet tall. The presidents at Mt. Rushmore are 60 feet)


On January 8, 2011, Jared Lee Loughner shoots 19 people outside a Tuscon, Arizona supermarket, including U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Az). Giffords was hosting a meet and greet for constituents when the 22-year old Loughner (below, right) walked up and shot her point blank with a 9 millimeter handgun, then turned and opened fire on the crowd. Bystanders tackled him when he attempted to reload and held him until police arrived. Six of the 19 shooting victims died; early news reports listed Giffords among the dead, but she survived the bullet wound that just missed her brain and made one final appearance on the House floor before her term expired the following year; she did not run for reelection. Loughner accepted a plea deal on 19 of the 49 counts made against him, including attempted assassination, and was sentenced to life in prison.


On January 8, 1941, newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst (left) sends a directive to the publishers of his 30-or-so papers nationwide that they are not to accept advertising, film reviews or any other material concerning the film Citizen Kane. The Orson Welles project is loosely based on Hearst's life and business career and is unflattering in its portrayal. Desperate to keep the film from the public (it premiered the following May), Hearst also launched a campaign through his papers in which he tried to have Welles labelled a communist. Another story says that Welles (right) was warned Hearst had arranged for a naked woman to be waiting in his hotel room along with a photographer in another attempt to discredit him; Welles took a room in another hotel and there is no proof the story is true. All this without ever having seen the movie; Hearst declined a personal invitation from Welles for a pre-premier screening. Citizen Kane was a box office flop, but is widely considered the greatest movie to ever come out of Hollywood.

 

On or about January 10, 49BC, General Gaius Julius Caesar leads a legion of troops across the Rubicon River, effectively beginning the Roman Civil War. Sponsored by his two principle allies on the Roman Senate, Crassus and Pompey, Caesar had conquered England and much of Gaul in the name of the Roman Republic over the previous decade. Crassus died in 53BC and Pompey lacked the influence alone to control Caesar. Ordered by the Senate to relinquish his command and return home, Caesar instead moved on Rome. The Rubicon in northern Italy represented the border between the Republic and the Roman frontier. Ancient historians disagree on the exact wording of Caesar's famed pronouncement; "The die is cast, I have crossed the Rubicon." By August, Caesar entered Rome and declared himself dictator.


On January 10, 1863, the Metropolitian Railway's first underground line, connecting the Paddington and Farringdon districts of London, opens. It is the world's first subway line, the London Underground. The first trains were powered by steam; electric trains began to be introduced in the first decade of the 20th century.


On January 10, 1812, the New Orleans, a steamboat owned and built by a partnership including steam engine innovator Robert Fulton, arrives in New Orleans. By completing the 82-day trip from Pittsburgh, PA by navigating the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, the New Orleans inaugurated commercial steam powered navigation on the North American continents inland waterways.

 

That's where the death of Crassus forced his hand. Roman law at the time prohibited the arrest or suing of an official of the government. Crassus and Pompey protected Caesar by making him governor of part of the territories of Gaul, but his term had expired and Pompey alone could not get him reappointed.