Merry Christmas to those who are celebrating it today!
TODAY IN HISTORY
January 7, 1610: Galileo Galilei mentions in a letter his discovery of three of the four “Galilean moons” (Callisto, Europa, Ganymede, and Io) of Jupiter. This is the first time Galileo is documented having observed the moons, though he apparently hadn’t yet realized what they were. Initially assuming them to be fixed stars, over the days and weeks after writing this letter Galileo determined that they were in fact moons and discovered the fourth one.
January 7, 1942: The Imperial Japanese army lays siege to US and Philippine forces on Luzon Island’s Bataan Peninsula. The beleaguered US and Philippine soldiers held out for a bit over three months, but finally surrendered to Japan on April 9. Some 78,000 soldiers surrendered, 12,000 of them American—one of the largest single surrenders in US military history. Over 20,000 Philippine and hundreds of US prisoners subsequently died in the ensuing Bataan Death March to the city of San Fernando and due to the brutality with which the Japanese military treated the captives.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
Fighting between government security forces and Syrian Democratic Forces fighters continued in and around Aleppo through a second straight day on Wednesday. At least six people have been killed (four civilians) and thousands have been displaced, according to Reuters. The violence reportedly “subsided” by Wednesday evening, but that doesn’t necessarily indicate anything as it also subsided on Tuesday evening before picking up again on Wednesday morning. Syrian forces are targeting the predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah and have declared them “closed military zones,” warning civilians to steer clear of SDF-positions in those areas.
