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 1902, John Steinbeck was born. In more than twenty books -- novels, short story collections, and non-fiction -- Steinbeck brought attention to America's overlooked. His characters were downtrodden everymen, struggling to survive. The Grapes of Wrath is perhaps Steinbeck's most enduring work, though he himself is said to have preferred East of Eden. Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, a controversial choice which many literary critics thought was undeserved. Six of Steinbeck's short novels are collected in an e-book bundle at OverDrive.
	On this day in 1923, Dexter Gordon was born. Gordon was a tenor saxophonist who started his career in Lionel Hampton's band; by the late 1940s, he was leading his own band. He spent most of the 1960s and early 1970s living in Europe; many of his most important recordings come from that period. He recorded less frequently in the 1980s, having been weakened by emphysema, and turned increasingly to acting, receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in the 1986 movie Round Midnight. Several of Gordon's albums are available for streaming or download at Freegal.
	And on this day in 1935, Mirella Freni was born. Freni made her operatic debut at the age of 20, and within a decade, was appearing regularly on the major opera stages of the world. Freni has been more aware than many opera singers about the range and limits of her voice, and her occasional ventures into heavier soprano roles have been mostly for recordings only; she has generally avoided performing such roles in long stage runs of multiple performances. That may help to explain her longevity; her final stage performance was in 2005, when she was 70. Mirella Freni: A Celebration collects highlights from her career; it's available for streaming at Hoopla.