For most of history, shooting stars were considered atmospheric phenomena — weather, essentially. Aristotle thought they were dry exhalations igniting in the upper air. The word 'meteor' comes from Greek 'meteōros' meaning 'high in the air' — same root as meteorology. It wasn't until the 1800s that scientists accepted they came from space. The turning point was the 1833 Leonid storm. Tens of thousands of meteors per hour. People thought the world was ending. Denison Olmsted crowdsourced observations via newspapers — an early citizen science project. He proved the meteors radiated from a point in Leo, and that point moved with the stars. They were cosmic, not atmospheric. Later, Giovanni Schiaparelli linked the Perseids to comet Swift-Tuttle. The connection between comets and meteor showers was proven. Today we know the parent bodies of most major showers. The sky keeps records we're still learning to read.