In the August 20, 2007 New Yorker magazine online:

"The Dark Side: Making War on Light Pollution" by David Owen

"In 1610, Galileo Galilei published a small book describing astronomical
observations that he had made of the skies above Padua. His homemade
telescopes had less magnifying and resolving power than most beginners¹
telescopes sold today, yet with them he made astonishing discoveries: that
the moon has mountains and other topographical features; that Jupiter is
orbited by satellites, which he called planets; and that the Milky Way is
made up of individual stars. It may seem strange that this last observation
could have surprised anyone, but in Galileo¹s time people assumed that the
Milky Way must be some kind of continuous substance. It truly resembled a
streak of spilled liquid‹our word 'galaxy' comes from the Greek for milk‹and
it was so bright that it cast shadows on the ground (as did Jupiter and
Venus).

"Today, by contrast, most Americans are unable to see the Milky Way
in the sky above the place where they live, and those who can see it are
sometimes baffled by its nature."

Full article here:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/20/070820fa_fact_owen?currentPage
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