On November 13, 1833, a New England night so crisp that even the insects heeded the harbinger of winter's dawn, Henry Dowling awakened his wife, who was deep into slumber from her day's labors.
Already dressed, and with with heavy coat in hand, he invited her to walk along the streets of Boston. "Are you bloody out of your mind?" she moaned, 'tis way past the mid-night!" the tone fully answering his unwelcome invitation.
"It's a fine night," he whispered softly, kissing the back of Elizabeth's head. "I'm down to the corner and back for a bit of the fresh air, but now you go right back to your sleep and I'll be fine for a smoke."
The old town cobblestones beneath his feet reflected no light, other than the soft illuminations cast by the brilliant stars of Orion, Taurus and Auriga above his head. There was no moon gracing the sky this cold November night. His corner he found enveloped in this blackness; one hand searched to lean against the carriage post while the other groped his vest in search of his pipe.
Only when Henry lit his Cavendish was the street below and the corner on which he stood clearly visible. As the brief and bright life of his match dimmed, a brilliant yellow shooting star streaked across the sky and disappeared silently to the west, followed by yet another that he was sure came down among the folks at Jersey.
"Fell right down to there, I reckon," Henry thought to himself.
The stars blazed in this black sky tonight for Henry, who leaned against the post to fully take in their celestial splendor. Another faint "shooting star" sped across, as if escaping the fire of the crimson red star Betelgeuse into southern skies and perhaps even falling, he reasoned, into the icy-cold waters of the Atlantic.
Unknown to him and the few others who could not sleep on this night, another fifty years from this night would see the first flames of the corner gas lamps would illuminate these same cobblestone and brick streets. And 100 years from the same corner, the streets then would be replaced with cemented aggregate, glowing dimly from buzzing incandescent bulbs masking the splendor of the November night skies.
Never in his wildest imagination would Henry have ever dreamed that from this same corner 168 years into the future -- in the futuristic year of 2001 -- one would not even be able to see the brightest of stars, much less the brilliant shooting stars that were now traversing his skies in greater numbers.
So greatly they increase that cries went out, Henry's pipe fell to the ground in amazement at the spectacle. Brilliant arcs of light streaking across the sky is so great a number that it appeared the very heavens were falling to the Earth.
Fortunately for Henry Dowling and the hundreds of people he awoke that brisk fall morning, the concept of turning nighttime into daylight had not yet dawned on mankind, and the heavens were incredibly dark and deep. Before the light of dawn on morning, from Henry's town to the tip of Florida, to the wild mountain country of Venezuela, the people of the Western Hemisphere would be witness to one of the most remarkable -- and frightening -- displays of celestial fireworks that has ever been seen by mankind.
Because this was the night that the stars fell from the sky.
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