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 1874, Gustav Holst was born. Holst wrote in most musical genres -- opera, ballet, chamber music, and a great deal of choral music and songs -- but is best known for his orchestral suite The Planets. It consists of seven movements, one for each of the planets other than Earth. When Pluto was discovered in 1930, Holst declined offers to write an additional movement; he thought that The Planets took too much attention away from his other music already. Several recordings of The Planets are available for streaming and download at Freegal.
	On this day in 1945, Kay Ryan was born. Ryan was the United States Poet Laureate from 2008 to 2010, and received the Pulitzer Prize in 2011. Ryan's poems are often quite brief, and she enjoys using various forms of internal rhyme; she is often praised for the quirky wit of her writing. Ryan's most recent collection, Erratic Facts, is available as an e-book from OverDrive.
	And on this day in 1957, Ethan Coen was born. Ethan and his brother Joel are a film-making team; they have directed and written seventeen movies together, most of which they have also edited under the pseudonym "Roderick Jaynes." Their films include such classics as Fargo, Blood Simple, The Big Lebowski, and No Country for Old Men. Billy Bob Thornton and Frances McDormand star in the Coens' The Man Who Wasn't There, a 40's-influenced black-and-white crime drama; it's available for streaming at Hoopla.