January 7, gunmen kill 12 at Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris

Today is Tuesday, Jan. 7, the seventh day of 2025. There are 358 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Jan. 7, 2015, masked gunmen stormed the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French newspaper that had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, methodically killing 12 people, including the editor, before escaping. (Two suspects were killed two days later.)

Also on this date:

In 1610, astronomer Galileo Galilei observed four of Jupiter’s moons for the first time.

In 1955, singer Marian Anderson became the first Black American to sing with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, in Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera.”

In 1979, Vietnamese forces captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, overthrowing the Khmer Rouge government.

In 2022, three white men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery were sentenced to life in prison; a judge in Georgia denied any chance of parole for the father and son who armed themselves and initiated the deadly pursuit of the 25-year-old Black man after spotting him running in their neighborhood.

In 2023, Republican Kevin McCarthy was elected speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives on a historic post-midnight 15th ballot, overcoming holdouts from his own ranks after a chaotic week that tested the new GOP majority’s ability to govern.