On This Day: December 23

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 on 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 1823, the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas," also known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," was first published in the Troy (NY) Sentinel. The initial publication was anonymous; author Clement Clarke Moore thought that such a light work would detract from his more scholarly endeavors. It was 1837 when the poem was first attributed to Moore, and Moore did not publicly acknowledge that he had written the poem until 1844. The poem has been adapted and referenced dozens of times in movies and TV, comics, and literature; and it's been set to music in any genre you could wish. You can read the poem again in an e-book at Hoopla.
	On this day in 1893, Engelbert Humperdinck's opera Hansel and Gretel was performed for the first time. The opera quickly became a staple of the holiday season. On Christmas Day 1931, it was the first opera to be broadcast in full on the radio by the Metropolitan Opera; and on its 50th anniversary in 1943, it was the first opera to be broadcast in full on television, by a local station in Schenectady, New York. Hansel and Gretel is available for streaming or download at Freegal.
	And on this day in 1963, Donna Tartt was born. Tartt is not a prolific novelist, having written only three novels since 1992, but her books have been critical and popular successes. Her 2013 novel The Goldfinch was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Her first novel, The Secret History, was something of a murder mystery in reverse; we know from the beginning who's been killed and by whom, and the book slowly reveals the "why" of the crime. It's available as an e-book or e-audio from OverDrive, or in print.

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