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 1829, Louis Moreau Gottschalk was born. Gottschalk was a composer and pianist who left New Orleans at the age of 13 to study in Paris. When he returned from Europe a decade later, he spent much of his time traveling through Central and South America; much of his music is inspired by the music he heard on his travels. Today, Gottschalk is best known for his piano music, though his orchestral music has become more frequently heard in recent years. Some of both can be heard on A Gottschalk Festival, available for streaming at Hoopla.
	On this day in 1911, Robert Johnson was born. Johnson was a traveling blues musician for most of his short life (he died at 27), and recorded only 29 songs. For twenty years after his death, he was remembered, if at all, as a minor figure. It was only in the 1960s, when his music began to be re-released, that his talent was broadly recognized. Today, Johnson is considered to be one of the finest guitarists and blues singers who ever lived, and he has been enormously influential on today's blues and rock musicians. The Complete Recordings of Robert Johnson are available for streaming or download at Freegal.
	And on this day in 1937, Thomas Pynchon was born. Pynchon is not a prolific writer -- eight novels and a collection of stories in fifty years -- but his dense and complicated novels have been cited as an important influence by writers and artists from Laurie Anderson to Salman Rushdie. For many, Pynchon's reclusiveness is nearly as well known as his writing; he hasn't given an interview in more than forty years, and the only known photos date back to his college years. Perhaps his most celebrated novel is Gravity's Rainbow, which is set in Europe at the end of World War II, and centers on the German military teams responsible for building V-2 rockets. Gravity's Rainbow is available as an e-book or e-audio from OverDrive.