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 1866, Erik Satie was born. Unlike many composers, Satie was not a child prodigy; his music professors at the Paris Conservatory called him their "laziest student" and said that his piano playing was "worthless." But his piano pieces would eventually make him an important figure in the Parisian avant-garde at the turn of the century. His music tended to be short, stating their ideas once, with little development or repetition. There was at least one exception: Vexations calls for the same brief passage to be repeated 840 times, and takes as much as 18 hours to perform in full. A variety of Satie's music is collected in The Eccentrics, available for streaming at Hoopla.
	On this day in 1911, Maureen O'Sullivan was born. O'Sullivan was a popular Hollywood ingenue of the 1930s who continued to work regularly through the late 1950s; she is best remembered for playing Jane in a series of Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmuller. O'Sullivan made a brief comeback in the 1980s, most notably in Hannah and Her Sisters, playing the mother of a character played by her real-life daughter, Mia Farrow. All six of the Tarzan movies are available on DVD in The Tarzan Collection.
	And on this day in 1942, Henry Fredericks was born; in his late teens, he would adopt the name Taj Mahal. Mahal is a blues singer and guitarist whose interest in music of Africa and the Caribbean -- he studied ethnomusicology as a college student -- has impacted his music. Mahal performs a distinctive style of blues, adding elements of reggae, calypso, and traditional folk music from around the world. Several of his albums are availble for streaming or download at Freegal.