Great moments in history and popular culture happen every day, and ON THIS DAY will share a few of them with you. We'll also point you to related resources in our collection, helping you to discover classic films, musical favorites, and historical tidbits. The primary focus will be our e-material -- e-books, e-audio, and downloadable and streamable music and film -- but physical books and DVDs will also be part of the fun.

	On this day in 1834, Amilcare Ponchielli was born. Ponchielli is among the "one-hit wonders" of classical music. His operas were quite popular in their day, but today, he's remembered almost entirely for "Dance of the Hours," a bit of ballet music from his La Gioconda. You might know "Dance of the Hours" from Fantasia (it's the one with the dancing hippos), or as the melody of Allan Sherman's "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah." Decide for yourself whether that's all there is to Ponchielli by listening to the entire opera La Gioconda, available for streaming at Hoopla.
	On this day in 1918, Alan Jay Lerner was born. The lyricist wrote musicals for stage and screen with several composers, but his greatest successes were his pairings with Frederick Loewe, including Brigadoon, My Fair Lady, and Gigi. Lerner & Loewe's Camelot became a recurring metaphor for the idealism and tragedy of the Kennedy assassination. An all-star cast performs songs by Lerner and his various songwriting partners in An Evening With Alan Jay Lerner, available for streaming at Hoopla.
	And on this day in 1945, Van Morrison was born. Morrison first's success came in 1964 as lead singer of Them, with "Gloria." Within a few years, he'd gone solo, and for nearly fifty years, he's been recording critically acclaimed albums. Morrison defines himself as a soul singer, but his music has drawn on jazz, country, new age, and Celtic folk, among other influences. He re-visits songs he'd recorded before, this time as duets, on Duets: Re-working the Catalogue; it's available for streaming or download at Freegal.