January 29: Polly Platt, Hollywood producer, screenwriter, and production designer, who wrote the screenplay for “Pretty Baby” and was the production designer for “The Last Picture Show,” “Paper Moon,” and “What’s Up Doc,” was born on this date in 1939.
January 28: Samuel Chester Reid, whose idea for changes to the American flag as new states were admitted to the Union (change the number of stars but maintain the 13 stripes) was adopted into law in 1818, died on this date in 1861.
January 27: The scandalous separation trial of Peaches and Edward “Daddy” Browning (she was 15, he was 51, when they married) began on this date in 1927.
January 26: China-trade merchant William Shepard Wetmore, whose Newport, Rhode Island, mansion, Chateau-Sur-Mer (1852) is now open to the public, was born on this date in 1801.
January 25: On this date in 1904, George Francis Train, a character if there ever was one, who went around the world in 90 days and became the model for Phineas Fogg, and who charged admission to his rallies during his 1872 presidential campaign (in which he got few votes but made much money), died.
January 24: Henry J. Raymond, founder and editor of The New York Times, was born on this date in 1820.
January 23: Actor and comedian Henry Placide, who starred in America and London, died on this date in 1870.
January 22: On this date in 1854, Patrick O’Donohue, Irish patriot and leader of the Young Irelander Movement, who had been sentenced by a British court to be hung, drawn and quartered for hight treason, then was pardoned, died.
January 21: Major General Fitz John Porter, described as “the most magnificent soldier in the Army of the Potomac,” made the mistake of being a Democrat in a Republican administration; he was court martialed and dismissed from the Army on this date in 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, but was restored to the Army in 1886.
January 20: Mob boss Johnny Torrio, now featured in HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire,” was born on this date in 1882. He taught Al Capone the business.