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During this month in 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo made the earthshaking discoveries that four moons revolve around Jupiter and that the telescope reveals many more stars than are visible to the naked eye.

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1968: Unmanned U.S. space probe Surveyor 7 was launched and, a few days later, made a soft landing on the Moon.

1955: American contralto Marian Anderson first performed with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

1800: Millard Fillmore, the 13th U.S. president, was born.

Hirohito

Emperor Hirohito—the longest-reigning monarch in Japanese history, who was enthroned in 1926, ruled during World War II and in democratic postwar Japan, and died this day in 1989—was succeeded by his son Akihito.

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Celebrated annually this day, Epiphany is a major feast that commemorates, for Western Christians, the coming of the Magi and, for Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jesus' birth, baptism by John, and first miracle.

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1950: Great Britain announced its recognition of the People's Republic of China.

1838: German composer Max Bruch was born in Cologne, Prussia.

1811: American Civil War statesman Charles Sumner was born in Boston.

1759: George Washington married Martha Dandridge in Virginia.

1540: Henry VIII of England married his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves.

Richard II

Born this day in 1367, King Richard II of England, an ambitious ruler who reigned from 1377 to 1399, was deposed by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke (Henry IV) because of his arbitrary and factional rule.

In San Francisco on this day in 1933, construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge, a suspension bridge that once boasted the longest main span in the world and that has been celebrated for the magnificence of its setting.

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1931: American dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey, Jr., was born in Rogers, Texas.

1925: Nellie Tayloe Ross assumed office in Wyoming, becoming the first female governor in the United States.

1919: Anton Drexler founded the German Workers' Party, the forerunner of the Nazi Party, in Munich, Germany.

1914: Following the great success of the Model T, American automobile maker Henry Ford raised his workers' pay from $2.40 to $5.00 a day and reduced the hours of the workday.

Umberto Eco

"The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else."

Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyper Reality (1986)

A renowned critic and semiotician (student of signs and symbols), Umberto Eco, born this day in 1932, is perhaps better known as the author of the best-selling murder mystery and fantasy novel The Name of the Rose (1981).

On this day in 1948, the Southeast Asian nation of Burma (Myanmar) formally gained independence, completing the transfer of power negotiated by Burmese leader Aung San and British Prime Minister Clement Attlee in 1947.

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1965: American-English author T.S. Eliot died in London.

1935: American professional boxer Floyd Patterson was born in Waco, North Carolina.

1809: French educator Louis Braille, who developed a system of printing and writing that is extensively used by the blind and that was named for him, was born near Paris.

Isaac Newton

"Every body perseveres in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed thereon."

Sir Isaac Newton, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)

Isaac Newton, born in England this day in 1643, was a leader of the scientific revolution whose Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687) is among the most important single works in the history of modern science.

On this day in 1521, Pope Leo X issued the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem, excommunicating Martin Luther, the German priest whose questioning of certain Roman Catholic practices initiated the Protestant Reformation.

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2001: Hillary Rodham Clinton was sworn in as a U.S. senator from New York, having become the first first lady in U.S. history to win elective office.

1939: Canadian professional ice hockey player Bobby Hull, the “Golden Jet,” was born.

1929: Italian motion-picture director Sergio Leone, known primarily for his popularization of the “spaghetti western,” was born.

1777: The Battle of Princeton (New Jersey) was fought during the American Revolution.

1543: Spanish soldier and explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, the ‘‘discoverer” of California, died.

Father Damien

Belgian priest Father Damien, born this day in 1840, went on a mission to the Hawaiian Islands in 1863 and subsequently devoted his life to ministering to the lepers who had been deported to Molokai island.

On this day in 1492, Granada, home of the Alhambra palace and the seat and final stronghold of the Moorish kingdom in Spain, was surrendered to the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand II and Isabella I, ending the Reconquest.

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Isaac Asimov

American biochemist and author Isaac Asimov, born in Russia this day in 1920, was a popularizer of scientific ideas and a prolific writer of science fiction, in which he created an ethical system for humans and robots.

On this day in 2002 the euro, the monetary unit of the European Union, was introduced with the issuance of both currency and coins, and by March 2002 it was the sole legal tender of participating member states.

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1863: The Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves of the Confederacy (the states in rebellion against the Union during the American Civil War), was issued by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

Alfred Stieglitz

"Wherever there is light, one can photograph."

Alfred Stieglitz

Born this day in 1864, Alfred Stieglitz was an American art dealer, an advocate for Modernist art, and his era's preeminent photographer, among whose most famous photos were those of his wife, painter Georgia O'Keeffe.

Ottawa, located in Ontario at the confluence of the Ottawa, Gatineau, and Rideau rivers and whose area was first described by Samuel de Champlain in 1613, was named the capital of Canada by Queen Victoria this day in 1857.

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1972: Baseball great Roberto Clemente died in an airplane crash en route to Nicaragua with relief supplies collected for earthquake survivors.

1775: American troops under General Richard Montgomery and Colonel Benedict Arnold were defeated by the British in the Battle of Quebec.

1600: The East India Company, formed for the exploitation of trade with East and Southeast Asia and India, was incorporated by English royal charter.

Sir Anthony Hopkins

Welsh actor Sir Anthony Hopkins, a performer of tremendous intensity born this day in 1937, is best remembered for his Academy Award-winning role as demented serial killer Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).