January 7 Birthday
On January 7, 1610, Galileo pointed his telescope at Jupiter and saw three small stars in a line. The next night, they had moved. Within weeks, he realized they were orbiting the planet. This was the first evidence that not everything in the sky revolved around Earth, and it cracked the geocentric model wide open. The Catholic Church would later force Galileo to recant, but the moons of Jupiter — Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto — kept orbiting anyway. People born on January 7 fall under the zodiac sign of Capricorn. The birthstone is Garnet and the birth flower is Carnation. Historical events on January 7 include 1610: Galileo discovers moons of Jupiter, 1785: First balloon flight across English Channel, 1979: Cambodian-Vietnamese War ends. Famous people born on January 7 include Millard Fillmore (1800), Charles Addams (1912), Katie Couric (1957).