Welcome to ON THIS DAY! Each day, we'll look at a few moments from history and popular culture. We'll show you where you can rediscover classic movies and music, or read more about great moments in history. We'll point you to e-books, downloadable and streamable music and film, and e-audio; and of course, we haven't forgotten about physical books or DVDs.

	On this day in 1911, Gian Carlo Menotti was born. Menotti wrote several ballets and choral pieces, but is best remembered for his operas. Two of them -- The Consul and The Saint of Bleecker Street  -- were awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music. Menotti's Christmas opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, was was written specifically for television, and its broadcast was an annual holiday tradition for many years in the 1950s and 1960s. The original 1951 recording of Amahl and the Night Visitors is available for streaming or download at Freegal.
	On this day in 1927, Doc Severinsen was born. Severinsen was a big band trumpeter who had already recorded a few albums when he joined the Tonight Show band in 1962, a few months before Johnny Carson began hosting the show. Severinsen took over as bandleader in 1967, and held the job until Carson's retirement in 1992. He continues to record and tour. Several of Severinsen's albums are available for streaming or download at Freegal.
	And on this day in 1928, loaves of pre-sliced bread were sold for the first time, by the Chillicothe Baking Company in Missouri. The machine that sliced and wrapped the bread was invented by Otto Rohwedder, who happens to have been born on this day in 1880. In White Bread, Aaron Bobrow-Strain traces the social history of store-bought bread and its changing image; it's available as an  e-book from OverDrive, or in print.