Google doodles

[9A]

7 Mar 2012

Alessandro Manzoni's 227th Birthday




Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Antonio Manzoni was an Italian poet, novelist and philosopher. He is famous for the novel The Betrothed [1827], generally ranked among the masterpieces of world literature. The novel is also a symbol of the Italian Risorgimento, both for its patriotic message and because it was a fundamental milestone in the development of the modern, unified Italian language.

[9A]

May 17, 2023

Renate Krößner's 78th Birthday




Today’s Doodle celebrates the 78th birthday of German actress Renate Krößner. She rose to international fame after her role as the titular character in Solo Sunny – a groundbreaking film from East Germany that resonated with people everywhere.

Krößner was born on this day in Osterode, Germany in 1945. She grew up in Berlin and performed in school theater productions. After studying acting at the Staatliche Schauspielschule Berlin, Krößner worked in East Germany theaters. While she performed smaller roles in a few television programs, Krößner was on her way to becoming a star.

In 1980, she was cast as the lead actress in Solo Sunny, an East Germany film about a band’s singer who longs to be a solo artist. Krößner’s performance as the rebellious and angst-ridden Sonny received critical acclaim around the world. She earned the Berlin International Film Festival’s Silver Bear for Best Actress—the first for an East Germany production. Her character’s attitude and fashion sense also widely influenced German youth.

After receiving permission to leave East Germany in 1985 she moved to West Berlin, Krößner became a mainstay on television shows like Stubbe - Von Fall zu Fall and Einmal Bulle. Her role as the love interest of a Franciscan monk in the show Bruder Esel earned her a Golden Lion award. She also starred in more films, including the thriller Unbesiegbar and the comedy Alles auf Zucker.

In 1991, Krößner was a jury member at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival. She later won a Deutscher Filmpreis Best Actress award for her work in Nordkurve. Krößner continued acting into the 2000s, later moving to Brandenburg, Germany.

Happy Birthday Renate Krößner, your iconic performances are immortalised on the silver screen, and are just as captivating today.

[9A]

Feb 10, 2023

P.K. Rosy's 120th Birthday




Today’s Doodle honours P.K. Rosy, who became the first female lead in Malayalam cinema. On this day in 1903, Rosy was born Rajamma in Thiruvananthapuram, formerly Trivandrum [Kerala’s capital city].

Rosy’s passion for acting began at a young age. In an era when performing arts was discouraged in many sections of society, especially for women, Rosy broke barriers with her role in the Malayalam film Vigathakumaran [The Lost Child]. Though she never received recognition for her work during her lifetime, Rosy’s story is relevant to conversations about representation in the media. Today, her story serves as motivation and inspiration for many.

Thank you for your courage and the legacy you leave behind, P.K. Rosy.

[9A]

Dec 06, 2022

Abdulhussain Abdulredha's 83rd Birthday




Today’s Doodle celebrating the 83rd birthday of Kuwaiti actor, singer, playwright, and comedian Abdulhussain Abdulredha was illustrated by Kuwait City-based guest artist Ahmed Al-Refaie [owaikeo].

On this day in 1939, Abdulredha was born in Kuwait to a seaman and homemaker, the seventh of fourteen children. He traveled to Egypt and Germany to study printmaking before he began working in the entertainment industry. He found his niche in the tragi-comedy genre, where his comedy shone a spotlight on social issues. Over his fifty-year career, Abdulhussain performed and produced over 30 plays and television series.

His work precipitated the political and social genre. Abdulhussain founded and directed an entertainment television channel in 2006 called Funoon TV, which was the first Arabic-language channel to focus on comedic material.

Abdulhussain is remembered for his bold social commentary, powerful singing voice, and being a father figure of Kuwait comedy. His comedy not only provided entertainment but also encouraged the audience to contemplate issues affecting Arab societies.

People can enjoy his many movies and plays today for a laugh, and to learn about the snapshots of history he satirizes.

Happy birthday, Abdulhussain Abdulredha!

[9A]

Jul 21, 2022

Lydia Tin Ha Sum's 77th Birthday



Today’s Doodle celebrates the 77th birthday of Lydia Tin Ha Sum, one of Hong Kong’s most beloved comedians. Affectionately known as “Fei Fei” [which means “Fat Fat” in Cantonese], as well as “Happy Fruit”, the Shanghai-born actress is a household name in Chinese communities around the world who brought laughter and positive energy through her shows.

Sum was born on this day in 1945. She began her career as a teen actress working for the Shaw Brothers Studio, the largest production company in Hong Kong at the time. In 1967, she landed her breakout role as the emcee for a popular variety show called “Enjoy Yourself Tonight.”

Soon after, she starred in the popular Cantonese film, “The House of 72 Tenants,” which follows the lives of residents in a run-down apartment. Sum’s realistic portrayal of working-class women struck a chord with theater-goers. The film surpassed blockbuster films, topping Hong Kong’s box office in 1973.

Sum went on to play a similar role in “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World,” a four-part blockbuster comedy about an impoverished family in search of wealth. A powerful commentary on social inequality, the classic film series continues to drive conversation in the media today.

Beyond Hong Kong, Sum also starred in Singapore's English-language sitcom,“Living with Lydia,” which won her Best Comedy Performance at the Asian Television Awards in 2003.

Happy 77th birthday, Lydia Sum! Your films and television shows still bring laughter and joy to Chinese communities all over the world.

[9A]

May 30, 2022

Celebrating Edmond Rostand


Today’s Doodle celebrates Edmond Rostand, a Neo-Romantic French poet and playwright. His most famous work was Cyrano de Bergerac, a play about a chivalrous swordsman with an oversized nose. The play’s sentimental hero—plagued by a love triangle—went on to symbolize the spirit of the French. On this day in 1901, Rostand was elected to the French Academy [l’Académie Française].

Born in 1868 in a southern port city called Marseille, Rostand grew up in a wealthy and cultured family. His father, a poet and an economist, was a member of scholarly societies such as Académie de Marseille and Institute de France. As a young adult, Rostand attended Collège Stanislas in Paris, where he studied literature, history and philosophy. By the time he was 20-years-old, he had completed his first play, a one-act comedy called Le Gant Rouge. The play was performed at Cluny Theatre in 1888. Although Rostand’s first play received little fanfare, it didn’t discourage him from continuing to write.

A few years later, Rostand created his first successful play, Les Romanesques, which was a parody of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The satirical play follows two families who fake a feud to encourage their children to fall in love. When it premiered in 1894, it put Rostand on the map. Les Romanesques became so popular—even outside of France—that it was later adapted into The Fantasticks, the world's longest-running musical.

Three years after Les Romanesques, Rostand produced his most beloved work, Cyrano de Bergerac, in 1897. To this day, Cyrano de Bergerac remains one of the most popular plays in France, and people all over the world still seek modern versions of this tale.

Today’s artwork celebrates Rostand’s literary brilliance. More than a century later, his endearing tales continue to be performed and resonate with hopeless romantics all over the world.

[9A]

May 04, 2024

Celebrating Hamida Banu



Born into a family of wrestlers in the early 1900s near Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, Banu grew up wrestling, winning over 300 competitions throughout her career spanning the 1940s and 1950s. Women’s participation in athletics was strongly discouraged by prevalent social norms at the time, but Banu was passionate and she competed with men anyway, issuing an open challenge to all male wrestlers and wagering her hand in marriage to the first to defeat her. Her career even extended into the international arena, where she won against a Russian woman wrestler Vera Chistilin in less than two minutes.

Her name appeared in newspaper headlines for years, and she became known as the “Amazon of Aligarh.” The bouts she won, her diet, and her training regimen were widely covered.

Hamida Banu was a trailblazer of her time, and her fearlessness is remembered throughout India and across the world. Outside of her sporting accomplishments, she will always be celebrated for staying true to herself.

[9A]

May 04, 2019

Eddie Aikau’s 73rd Birthday



Today’s Doodle celebrates Eddie Aikau, big wave surfer, lifeguard, and enduring symbol of Hawaiian heritage. Born on the island of Maui on this day in 1946, Eddie moved to Oahu with his family in 1959 and went on to become the first lifeguard hired by Honolulu officials to work on the North Shore of the island.

Not a single life was lost while he served as a lifeguard at Waimea Bay, making some 500 rescues without the assistance of a jet ski or any modern equipment. Eddie was famous for making rescues even in surf that reached 30 feet high. His fearlessness went on to inspire the slogan “Eddie would go.”

Hailing from a surfing family, Eddie was one of the first native Hawaiians to win the prestigious Duke Kahanamoku Invitational Surfing Championship in 1977, just four years after his older brother Clyde, who was the very first. Aside from his distinguished surfing career, Eddie found other ways to represent the culture of his native island. In 1978, Eddie joined the crew of the Hokule'a, a historically accurate double-hulled canoe retracing the ancient Polynesian migration route to Hawaii. The vessel sprung a leak and capsized in rough waters. Eddie was last seen heroically paddling off on his surfboard towards the nearest island to seek help for the crew, who were later rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard.

Today, Eddie’s legacy lives on through the Eddie Aikau Foundation as well as the prestigious Eddie Aikau Invitational, which has seen some of big-wave surfing’s greatest names competing with maximum respect for the authenticity of surf culture.

Here’s to you, Eddie.

[9A]

Aug 27, 2018

198th Anniversary of the First Ascent of the Zugspitze




The Zugspitze is Germany’s tallest mountain, standing at a height of 2,962 meters, and situated along the border between Germany and Austria.

The first people to ascend the Zugspitze were Lieutenant Josef Naus, a 27-year-old engineer from the Royal Bavarian Army, his mountain guide Johann Georg Tauschl, and a military orderly named Maier. Lieutenant Naus was employed by the Royal Bavarian Topographic Bureau, putting together an Atlas of Bavaria. Seeking to prove that this pinnacle was the loftiest in the Kingdom of Bavaria, they trekked across glaciers covered with melting ice— conditions ripe for avalanches.

Setting out in July they made their way across the largest glacier, proceeding to a shepherd’s hut from which they would attempt to climb the summit. After a short night’s rest, Naus’ party undertook their ascent on August 27, 1820, reaching the top seven hours and forty-five minutes later. Storms soon enfolded the mountain, hastening the men’s descent.

Today, visitors can take a cable car up the steep incline to the top, where they are rewarded with awe-inspiring views of the many jagged limestone peaks forming the border between Germany and Austria.

Some believe that local climbers—gatherers or hunters—may have beaten the Naus survey team to the summit before 1820. But Naus, Tauschl, and Maier were the first to prove their success in reaching the pinnacle. Today’s Doodle celebrates the Zugspitze immensity, beauty, and its importance to both Austria and Germany.

[9A]

Jan 20, 2015

Ji Hyeonok’s 56th Birthday




In 1993, Ji Hyeon-ok led a team of female Korean mountain climbers to the summit of Mt. Everest. She was the first female mountaineer to succeed in climbing peaks above 8000m without supplemental oxygen and without a sherpa.

In addition to Everest, Ji scaled Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II and Annapurna — and was the first female Korean mountaineer to do so. After climbing Annapurna in 1999, she sadly passed away on her descent to the basecamp. Ji, who was also a fine-arts teacher, was remarkably brave and dared to go where few had ventured.

[9A]

Aug 25, 2014

Althea Gibson's 87th Birthday




Althea Neale Gibson [August 25, 1927 – September 28, 2003] was an American tennis player and professional golfer, and one of the first Black athletes to cross the color line of international tennis. In 1956, she became the first African American to win a Grand Slam title [the French Championships]. The following year she won both Wimbledon and the US Nationals [precursor of the US Open], then won both again in 1958 and was voted Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press in both years. In all, she won 11 Grand Slam tournaments: five singles titles, five doubles titles, and one mixed doubles title. Gibson was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame and the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame. "She is one of the greatest players who ever lived", said Bob Ryland, a tennis contemporary and former coach of Venus and Serena Williams. "Martina [Navratilova] couldn't touch her. I think she'd beat the Williams sisters." In the early 1960s she also became the first Black player to compete on the Women's Professional Golf Tour.

[9A]

25 August 2009

400th Anniversary of Galileo's Telescope



The history of the telescope can be traced to before the invention of the earliest known telescope, which appeared in 1608 in the Netherlands, when a patent was submitted by Hans Lippershey, an eyeglass maker. Although Lippershey did not receive his patent, news of the invention soon spread across Europe. The design of these early refracting telescopes consisted of a convex objective lens and a concave eyepiece. Galileo improved on this design the following year and applied it to astronomy. In 1611, Johannes Kepler described how a far more useful telescope could be made with a convex objective lens and a convex eyepiece lens. By 1655, astronomers such as Christiaan Huygens were building powerful but unwieldy Keplerian telescopes with compound eyepieces.

Isaac Newton is credited with building the first reflector in 1668 with a design that incorporated a small flat diagonal mirror to reflect the light to an eyepiece mounted on the side of the telescope. Laurent Cassegrain in 1672 described the design of a reflector with a small convex secondary mirror to reflect light through a central hole in the main mirror.

The achromatic lens, which greatly reduced color aberrations in objective lenses and allowed for shorter and more functional telescopes, first appeared in a 1733 telescope made by Chester Moore Hall, who did not publicize it. John Dollond learned of Hall's invention and began producing telescopes using it in commercial quantities, starting in 1758.