In the mood for a good movie? Some toe-tapping music? A thrilling book? ON THIS DAY will lead you to new possibilities every day, tied to interesting moments from history and popular culture. Whether it’s streamable and downloadable music and film, e-books and e-audio, or physical books and DVDs, we hope you’ll find something to enjoy as you pick up a few bits of history each day.

	On this day in 1912, Gil Evans was born. Evans was a pianist and bandleader who began his career as an arranger, most notably for Claude Thornhill in the 1940s and for Miles Davis in the 1950s. By 1957, he was leading his own band, which often used a wider array of instruments than the usual big band -- French horns, tubas, flutes, harp. In the 1970s, he began to add electric guitars and keyboards to his ensembles, largely inspired by his admiration of Jimi Hendrix. Several of Evans' albums are available for streaming or download at Freegal.
	On this day in 1943, Mary Wells was born. Wells was the first female Motown star, and had great success in the early 1960s with a string of songs written by Smokey Robinson -- "The One Who Really Loves You," "Two Lovers," "My Guy." She left Motown in 1965 after a series of contract disputes and other legal issues, and was never able to fully duplicate the success she had known there. A selection of Wells' music is available for streaming at Hoopla.
	And on this day in 1944, Armistead Maupin was born. Maupin's "Tales of the City" novels began life as a newspaper serial, published originally in The Pacific Sun, and later in The San Francisco Chronicle. The serialized story was later re-worked into a series of six novels; three later novels in the series were written without having begun serialized first. The novels tell the story of a large group of friends living in San Francisco over a period of nearly forty years. The first novel in the series, Tales of the City, is available as an e-book or e-audio at OverDrive, or in print.