Today (January 20) is the birthday of Abraham Grace Merritt, born in New Jersey in 1884. Merritt, who pared his byline down to A. Merritt, edited Hearst's American Weekly Sunday magazine from 1937 until his death in 1944, but is better known today as the author of fantasy and science fiction novels with titles like "Burn, Witch, Burn!" and "Creep, Shadow, Creep!"
In very unrelated news, today is also the anniversary of Sports Illustrated's first swimsuit issue, published in 1964. The magazine's editors were partly motivated (or so they insisted) by the lack of cover-worthy sports news that time of year.