Google doodles

[9A]

Mar 7, 2011
Sendung mit der Maus 40th Anniversary




Die Sendung mit der Maus [[The Show with the Mouse) is a children's series on German television that has been called "the school of the nation". The show first aired on 7 March 1971. Originally called Lach- und Sachgeschichten für Fernsehanfänger [["Laughing and Learning Stories for Television Beginners"), it was controversial because German law prohibited television for children under six years of age.The program was initially condemned by teachers and childcare professionals as bad for children's development, but is now hailed for its ability to convey information to children. The show has received over 75 awards. The first doctoral dissertation on the program was written in 1991. On 7 March 1999 the program's Internet site was launched and received 2,400 e-mails and 4 million hits on the first day.

[9A]

Mar 5, 2012
Heitor Vila Lobos' 125th Birthday







Heitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer, conductor, cellist, and classical guitarist described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known South American composer of all time. A prolific composer, he wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works, totaling over 2000 works by his death in 1959. His music was influenced by both Brazilian folk music and by stylistic elements from the European classical tradition, as exemplified by his Bachianas Brasileiras [[Brazilian Bachian-pieces) and his Chôros. His Etudes for classical guitar [[1929) were dedicated to Andrés Segovia, while his 5 Preludes [[1940) were dedicated to his spouse Arminda Neves d’Almeida, a.k.a. "Mindinha." Both are important works in the classical guitar repertory.

[9A]

March 8, 2021
International Women's Day 2021




https://www.google.com/doodles/inter...omens-day-2021 [[Interactive)

Today’s annual International Women’s Day Doodle takes a journey through a series of firsts in women’s history—highlighting female pioneers who have challenged the status quo and paved the way in education, ci vil rights, science, art, and so much more.


The video Doodle pays homage to these [[s)heroes by depicting the hands that have opened the doors for generations of women. While some firsts achieve something spectacularly new, others are receiving a recognition or right that is long overdue.


Suffragists, academics, gold medalists, entrepreneurs and more—today’s Doodle celebrates the women around the world who overcame the obstacles of their time to create a lasting legacy. These firsts stand on the shoulders of countless others—women who laid the foundation, in the past, for today’s doors to be finally opened and glass ceilings broken.

[9A]

March 8, 2021
International Women's Day 2021




https://www.google.com/doodles/inter...omens-day-2021 [[Interactive)

Today’s annual International Women’s Day Doodle takes a journey through a series of firsts in women’s history—highlighting female pioneers who have challenged the status quo and paved the way in education, ci vil rights, science, art, and so much more.


The video Doodle pays homage to these [[s)heroes by depicting the hands that have opened the doors for generations of women. While some firsts achieve something spectacularly new, others are receiving a recognition or right that is long overdue.


Suffragists, academics, gold medalists, entrepreneurs and more—today’s Doodle celebrates the women around the world who overcame the obstacles of their time to create a lasting legacy. These firsts stand on the shoulders of countless others—women who laid the foundation, in the past, for today’s doors to be finally opened and glass ceilings broken.

Worth repeating.

[9A]

Jan 7, 2014
Zora Neale Hurston's 123rd Birthday



Zora Neale Hurston was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-1900s American South and published research on hoodoo.The most popular of her four novels is Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937. She also wrote more than 50 short stories, plays, and essays.

[9A]

January 7, 2012
Oskar Luts' 125th Birthday




Oskar Luts was an Estonian writer and playwright. He created his happiest literary works in the years before World War I. He wrote several comedies as well as his first novel called Kevade . This highly popular novel portrayed the daily school life of young people in rural Estonia. Kevade proved to be Oskar Luts's most successful and well-known work.

[9A]

Jan 25, 2012
Vladmir Vysotsky's 74th Birthday



Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky was a Soviet singer-songwriter, poet, and actor whose career had an immense and enduring effect on Soviet culture.

[9A]

Jan 30, 2012
I.L. Caragiale's 160th birthday



Ion Luca Caragiale was a Romanian playwright, short story writer, poet, theater manager, political commentator and journalist. Leaving behind an important cultural legacy, he is considered one of the greatest playwrights in Romanian language and literature, as well as one of its most important writers and a leading representative of local humour.

[9A]

January 30, 2013
Leonid Gaidai's 90th Birthday



Leonid Iovich Gaidai was a Soviet and Russian comedy film director who enjoyed immense popularity and broad public recognition in the former Soviet Union. His films broke theatre attendance records and were some of the top-selling DVDs in Russia. He has been described as "the king of Soviet comedy".

[9A]

Feb 22, 2016
Tamaki Miura’s 132nd Birthday





A master of operatic performances in French, German, and Italian, Tamaki Miura was the first internationally heralded Japanese soprano. She was best known for her role in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, which she performed for enraptured audiences over 2,000 times in theaters from London to San Francisco. As one critic for The Evening Post noted after a 1920 performance in Chicago, her artistry was sensational both “vocally and dramatically”, and “many [in the audience] were in tears.”

[9A]

Mar 8, 2013
Women's Day 2013





Creating this Doodle, while lots of fun, was quite a challenge. After all, women make up more than half of the population. How can they be fairly represented in just one illustration? While no attempt is perfect, it took a number of tries to arrive at the final concept that you see on the homepage.

[9A]

Mar 12, 2013
Evert Taube's 123rd Birthday




Axel Evert Taube was a Swedish author, artist, composer and singer. He is widely regarded as one of Sweden's most respected musicians and the foremost troubadour of the Swedish ballad tradition in the 20th century.

[9A]

Apr 17, 2013
Chavela Vargas' 94th Birthday




Isabel Vargas Lizano , better known as Chavela Vargas was a Costa Rica-born Mexican singer. She was especially known for her rendition of Mexican rancheras, but she is also recognized for her contribution to other genres of popular Latin American music.

[9A]

June 15, 2015
800th Anniversary of the Magna Carta






It’s 1215 in Runnymede, England. On the banks of the River Thames, King John sits nervously with a group of powerful barons. The mood at the negotiation table is tense, and the country teeters on the precipice of civil war. It’s no wonder the barons are hot under the collar--for years, the despotic King John has been doling out prison sentences with impunity, and the barons have descended upon him to demand their rights be recognized.

The ensuing negotiations would result in the sealing of the Magna Carta. For the first time, a monarch entered a written contract that limited his power and made him answerable to his subjects. This was a profound idea, and one that would inspire political thinkers in some of history’s most pivotal moments.

[9A]

Mar 8, 2016
International Women's Day 2016




https://www.google.com/doodles/inter...omens-day-2016 [[Interactive)


Over the years, Doodles have commemorated the achievements of women in science, civil rights, journalism, sports, arts, technology and beyond. It’s always an honor to pay tribute to women who have changed the course of history, sometimes in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. But for this year’s International Women’s Day, we wanted to celebrate the Doodle-worthy women of the future. So we gathered our cameras and pencils and visited 13 countries where we spoke to 337 women and girls and asked them to complete the sentence, “One day I will…”


From toddlers to grandmothers, the women in San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Lagos, Moscow, Cairo, Berlin, London, Paris, Jakarta, Bangkok, New Delhi and Tokyo all sparkled with personality. Each new city brought more “One day I will”s, more signature dance moves, more hugs, more high-fives. The aspirations we heard were as varied as the women and girls who shared them, from the very personal—swim with pigs in the Bahamas—to the very global—give a voice to those who can’t speak—and everything in between. When it was done, we found that our own “One day I will…”s had grown bigger and richer, inspired by the women we had met.


Even women who are already accomplished aren’t done dreaming. Jane Goodall shared her hope to one day discuss the environment with the Pope, while Nobel Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai and activist Muzoon Almellehan continue to work fearlessly toward a future where every girl can go to school.

[9A]

February 27, 2018
Celebrating May Ayim








Today’s Doodle celebrates author, poet, and activist May Ayim. It was on this date in 2010 that "May Ayim Ufer" or "May Ayim Street" was named in her honor in Berlin.
Born in 1960 to a Ghanaian father and a German mother, Ayim drew inspiration from a difficult childhood to become a prominent figure in the Black German movement.


Ayim’s pioneering work helped lay the groundwork for the field of Black German history. Her 1986 thesis, “Afro-Germans: Their Cultural and Social History on the Background of Social Change,” was the first scholarly work on Afro-German history from the Middle Ages to the present. This thesis also provided the foundation of her renowned book, “Farbe Bekennen.” In addition to her scholarly publications, Ayim’s poetry collections brought the Black German struggle for equality to an international stage.

[9A]

November 29, 2017
Gertrude Jekyll’s 174th Birthday

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If not for legendary horticulturist and garden designer Gertrude Jekyll, the world might be a much drabber place. Born in London on this day in 1843, Jekyll spent most of her life in Surrey, England, on her family’s estate, Munstead House. Later, she moved into her own house, Munstead Wood, where she planted one of her most enchanting gardens.

A woman of innumerable talents, Jekyll was also an accomplished musician, composer, woodworker, metalworker, and botanist. Her foundation as a budding artist greatly influenced her breathtaking creations. As a student, she took inspiration from the landscapes of English Romantic painter J.M.W. Turner, capturing the seasons, the light, the textures, and the hues of every growing thing on her canvases. Jekyll brought that painterly sensibility to her life’s work, designing about 400 gardens in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the U.S., which were documented in photographs, over a dozen books, and thousands of magazine articles.

[9A]

Jan 28, 2018
50th Anniversary of Princess Sirindhorn Bird First Sighting




It has been 50 years since the rare white-eyed river Martin was first spotted in Thailand, a bird seen so infrequently it is nearly mythical.

Known locally as the Princess Sirindhorn bird, the white-eyed Martin is one of only two species of birds native to Thailand. This unique Thai treasure is distinguished by gleaming green-black feathers, a white midsection and a tail extending into two delicate black feathers.

Its beauty is hard to find, with only three confirmed sightings since it was first discovered at a wintering site in 1968. The Thai government has honored the mystical species with a stamp and commemorative coin, meant to pique curiosity and raise awareness of the bird.

No one has spotted the Princess Sirindhorn since 1980, stoking unconfirmed speculation that the species has gone extinct. That won’t stop residents and tourists alike this spring from perusing river banks, where the rare bird is known to roost, in the hopes that they’ll spot this rare Thai jewel!

[9A]

Nov 22, 2017
Celebrating Kimchi









Today we celebrate Kimchi on what is known as “Kimchi Day” in Korea! According to local research, the date is significant in this tasty treat’s creation because salting kimchi today helps the dish reach its full flavor potential.

Packing a powerful punch of napa cabbage, green onion, fish sauce, red pepper flakes, rice flour, salt, ginger, radish, carrot, and garlic, fermented kimchi in onggi [[clay pot) is loved by many around the world and is traditionally eaten with chopsticks. Today’s Doodle celebrates each ingredient that goes into making some seriously scrumptious kimchi.

Kimchi was first referenced in Korea about 2,600-3,000 years ago, and in the 18th century, it was first made with chili peppers. Due to varying regional recipes, there are hundreds of different types of kimchi. Many Korean households even have a separate kimchi refrigerator!


The dish is produced in especially large amounts during November and December. This is when kimjang [[kimchi curing) takes place in preparation for winter. During kimjang, cabbage is pickled by cutting it into smaller pieces, soaking it in brine overnight, and dashing salt. Then, yangnyum [[radish coated in chili powder) is mixed with ingredients such as green onions, dropwort, mustard leaves, ginger, garlic, and fermented shrimp or anchovies. To complete the process, the pickled cabbage is stuffed or mixed with the yangnyum and stored away to ferment until eating.

[9A]

Sep 18, 2017
Samuel Johnson’s 308th Birthday







If you wanted to know what the word 'lexicographer' means today, you might Google it. If you fancy a throwback however, you might grab a dictionary. Today’s Doodle celebrates the 308th birthday of British lexicographer – a person who compiles dictionaries – Samuel Johnson.

Samuel Johnson published A Dictionary of the English Language in 1755 after 9 years of work. It was described as “one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship,” and had a far-reaching effect on modern English. It was “colossal” at nearly 18 inches tall! Johnson’s was the premier English dictionary until the publication of the Oxford English Dictionary 150 years later.

Johnson was also a poet, essayist, critic, biographer and editor. Johnson’s dictionary was more than just a word list: his work provided a vast understanding of 18th century's language and culture. His lasting contributions guaranteed him a place in literary history.

[9A]

Oct 4, 2017
Violeta Parra’s 100th Birthday





Today we celebrate the 100th birthday of Violeta Parra, the Chilean composer, folk singer, social activist, author, and artist.

Born in the small, southern Chilean town of San Fabián de Alico, Parra picked up the guitar at an early age and began writing songs with her siblings. She started her career performing in small venues, later traveling across Chile to record a large breadth of traditional Chilean folk music. Her increasing popularity eventually earned her her own radio show and an invitation to perform at a youth festival in Poland. While in Europe, she also explored the visual arts, creating oil paintings, wire sculptures, ceramics, and burlap tapestries called arpilleras which were exhibited in the Louvre Palace in Paris in 1964.

She is perhaps best remembered as the “Mother of Latin American folk,” pioneering the Nueva canción chilena, a renewal of Chilean folk traditions that blossomed into a movement which celebrated the fight for social justice throughout Latin America. Upon her return to Chile in 1965, she established Centro Cultural La Carpa de La Reina, a community center for the arts and political activism.

[9A]

July 8, 2019
Celebrating Women's World Cup 2019 Champions: the United States of America



Over the past month, players from the women's national teams of 24 countries competed for top rank across nine cities in France. Today, the games culminated at the Parc Olympique Lyonnais in Décines-Charpieu, a suburb of Lyon, France, where the United States Women’s National Team has won to become the 2019 Women’s World Cup champions!

This year's Doodle series celebrated the rich cultures and talent of all 24 participating countries by featuring guest artists hailing from each nation. We hope you've enjoyed all 24 Doodles throughout the games, each capturing the local excitement of the World Cup competition as well as what soccer means to the guest artist personally.

[9A]

Jan 7, 2009
Johann Philipp Reis' Birthday


Johann Philipp Reis was a self-taught German scientist and inventor. In 1861, he constructed the first make-and-break telephone, today called the Reis telephone.

In 1878, four years after his death and two years after Bell received his first telephone patent, European scientists dedicated a monument to Philip Reis as the inventor of the telephone.

[9A]

Jun 21, 2014
World Cup 2014 #21





A little sibling rivalry on our home page.

A fun fact from the Google Trends World Cup headquarters:
Germany is searching for Ghana player Kevin Prince Boateng 20% more than for his brother Jerome Boateng, even though the latter plays for Germany.

[9A]

July 3, 2017
140th Anniversary of Wimbledon




Today’s Doodle marks the 140th year of the Wimbledon championships, the world’s oldest tennis tournament. Each year, hundreds of players take a shot at winning this Grand Slam event. Wimbledon has drawn crowds since the dawn of professional tennis, way back when players were using handmade wooden rackets. The tournament is known for its grass courts, perfectly maintained to a neat 8mm — a sturdy height for fast-moving feet.

Like all British institutions, Wimbledon has its endearing quirks. Keep an eye out for the beloved Rufus the Hawk [[featured in the Doodle), who dutifully shoos away any pigeons who land on the court during a match. And if you're wondering what the spectators are snacking on, it's strawberries and cream — 28,000kg every year!

[9A]

June 5, 2011
Richard Scarry's 92nd Birthday







I had a lot of fun working with the folks at Random House — including one of Richard Scarry's actual art directors, as well as his son, Huck — to create an original pencil and watercolor piece depicting Busytown. There is so much going on in Busytown that I thought I'd show a few closeups here as well as talk about the process.

Scarry's technique allowed him to work pretty loosely with his watercolors, and he'd frequently paint off-register, that is, not quite up to [[or way beyond) the line drawing. This gave his illustrations an even more lighthearted quality. In our case, it's Richard Scarry's Best Google Doodle Ever!

[9A]

Apr 3, 2011
Anniversary of the Ice Cream Sundae




When the doodle team heard that the 119th anniversary of the first ever documented ice cream sundae was fast approaching, we couldn't resist the indulgence. The ice cream sundae is a dessert that's rife with opportunities for reinterpretation and restyling, but the prototypical setup – with ice cream, hot fudge, whipped cream, sprinkles, strawberries, nuts, and cherries all piled into an elegant glass – is still a classic.


Even though the first documented sundae was made in 1892, for this doodle I drew inspiration from vintage 1950s soda shoppe decor and magazine advertisements. I also did a fair amount of research at my local ice cream parlor!

[9A]

February 3, 2010
Norman Rockwell's 106th Birthday - © 1926 SEPS by Curtis Publishing



Norman Percevel Rockwell was an American painter and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of American culture. Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine over nearly five decades.

[9A]

Jan 4, 2010
Sir Isaac Newton's 367th Birthday



Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, theologian, and author [[described in his time as a "natural philosopher") who is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution.

[9A]

Jan 28, 2008
50th Anniversary of the Lego Brick




Lego is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of variously coloured interlocking plastic bricks accompanying an array of gears, figurines called minifigures, and various other parts. Lego pieces can be assembled and connected in many ways to construct objects, including vehicles, buildings, and working robots. Anything constructed can be taken apart again, and the pieces reused to make new things.

[9A]

Nov 24, 2019
195th Anniversary of Las Piñas Bamboo Organ





Today’s Doodle celebrates the 195th anniversary of the Las Piñas Bamboo Organ, the oldest, largest, and only known bamboo pipe organ in existence. Constructed over 8 years with 1,031 pipes, 902 of which are made of native bamboo, the Bamboo Organ of St. Joseph Parish Church in Las Piñas, Manila, was completed in 1824 under the direction of Spanish missionary Fray Diego Cera de la Virgen del Carmel. The organ is still operational and has been playing daily for nearly 45 years since its reconstruction.

In the 1880s, natural disasters severely damaged the instrument, silencing it until a restoration project started in 1972. The organ was moved from Las Piñas to Bonn, Germany, where it underwent a full reconstruction, returning to the island in 1975. The homecoming celebrations morphed into the International Bamboo Organ Festival, held every February. On this day in 2003, the Bamboo Organ was named a National Cultural Treasure by the National Museum of the Philippines.

[9A]

Jun 14, 2017
Doodle 4 Google 2017 — Canada Winner




In this year’s Doodle 4 Google contest, more than 12,000 students from across Canada submitted doodles around the theme “What I see for Canada’s future is…”. Young artists imagined a country where robots could cure disease, others dreamed of living on Mars, while some saw a world united by nature.


Following a very close public vote where Canadians voted more than 465,000 times, four incredibly talented grade group winners were revealed at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Of those four masterpieces, 11th-grader Jana Sofia Panem’s Doodle, "A Bright Future" was selected as the national winner!

[9A]

May 11, 2008
Florence Nightingale's Birthday



Florence Nightingale was an English social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War, in which she organised care for wounded soldiers at Constantinople. She gave nursing a favourable reputation and became an icon of Victorian culture, especially in the persona of "The Lady with the Lamp" making rounds of wounded soldiers at night.

[9A]

Jul 14, 2012
Gustav Klimt's 150th Birthday





The doodle team and I are especially excited to celebrate Gustav Klimt this year! An artist whose style ranges from graphic, to photorealistic, to florid, Klimt is as diverse in his works as he is expressive. His work is often emotional, mysterious, and narrative-- attracting viewers with both his fluid forms and intriguing figures. I, personally, have been a fan of his work for as long as I can remember.

[9A]

Apr 14, 2012
Robert Doisneau's 100th Birthday




Robert Doisneau was a French photographer. In the 1930s, he made photographs on the streets of Paris. He was a champion of humanist photography and with Henri Cartier-Bresson a pioneer of photojournalism.

[9A]

Mar 23, 2012
Juan Gris' 125th Birthday





It may be difficult to imagine, but Picasso had artists that he admired. Perhaps most notable among them was Juan Gris, a close friend, though – according to an account in Gertrude Stein's book, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, he was also "... the only person whom Picasso wished away." Well, the doodle team is very happy that Picasso did not get his wish!

[9A]

May 7, 2012
Władysław Reymont's 145th Birthday




Władysław Stanisław Reymont was a Polish novelist and the 1924 laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature. His best-known work is the award-winning four-volume novel Chłopi [[The Peasants).

[9A]

January 22, 2016
Wilbur Scoville’s 151st Birthday




https://www.google.com/doodles/wilbu...151st-birthday [[interactive)

People have known about the tongue-burning, tear-inducing qualities of peppers long before Columbus reached the Americas. Before Wilbur Scoville, however, no one knew how to measure a pepper's “heat”. The doodle team thought his work in this field—and the development of his eponymous Scoville Scale—deserved some recognition.

Born in Bridgeport Connecticut on January 22nd, 1865, Wilbur Lincoln Scoville was a chemist, award-winning researcher, professor of pharmacology and the second vice-chairman of the American Pharmaceutical Association. His book, The Art of Compounding, makes one of the earliest mentions of milk as an antidote for pepper heat. He is perhaps best remembered for his organoleptic test, which uses human testers to measure pungency in peppers.

[9A]

Jan 11, 2016
Alice Paul’s 131st Birthday





When the 19th Amendment to the Constitution became law in August of 1920, women finally won the right to vote after a very long fight. Many suffragists played vital roles in this victory, but none more so than Alice Paul. Paul first made a name for herself by organizing a successful women’s suffrage parade the day before Woodrow Wilson’s first inauguration. Paul thought that public demonstrations were the smartest ways to achieve voting rights. That belief put her at odds with the National American Woman Suffrage Association, so she founded her own organization, the National Women’s Party.

Paul’s group organized daily protests in front of the White House [[marking the first time anyone demonstrated there). Police arrested the protestors on a made up charge, and Paul was one of the women to be sent to jail. While in jail she and the other women were treated horribly. Journalists wrote about the mistreatment, people became outraged, and the suffragists gained public support. A short while later President Woodrow Wilson declared his support for a constitutional amendment that would finally give women the right to vote. It would take another couple of years for the amendment to become the law, but his support marked a crucial turning point. Alice Paul dedicated the rest of her life to fighting for the equality of women, authoring the very first version of the Equal Rights Amendment and working the rest of her life towards its passage.

[9A]

Jan 9, 2016
41st Anniversaryof the Discovery of the Mountain of the Butterflies





In 1975, after a decades long search that involved thousands of volunteers and spanned an entire continent, Ken Brugger and Catalina Trail unlocked one of nature’s most beautiful mysteries: the overwintering place of the monarch butterfly. Led by a team of Canadian Zoologists under Fred Urquhart, the couple followed clues left by tagged butterflies that had strayed or fallen on their migratory journeys south. The scene, in which millions of monarchs cling to oyamel trees in Mexico’s easternmost Sierra Madre Mountains, would have been overwhelming. “They swirled through the air like autumn leaves,” said Urquhart after his first visit, “carpet[ing] the ground in their flaming myriads on the Mexican mountainside.”

[9A]

Dec 16, 2015
Remedios Varo’s 107th Birthday





One of the most accomplished surrealist painters of the 20th century, Remedios Varo is best known for striking oil paintings that blended together elements of science, magic and mysticism.

Varo was born in Spain and moved around a bit before ultimately settling in Mexico, where she created her finest works, including “La Llamada” [[The Call), which is replicated in today’s celebratory Google Doodle. Varo lived during a time when male painters viewed their female counterparts as inferior, but she didn’t hesitate to make women the powerful centerpieces of her paintings. Today’s Google Doodle honors Varo on what would have been her 107th birthday, for her extraordinary imagination and complex paintings that allow her rare talent to live on.

[9A]

Dec 15, 2015
Chico Mendes’ 71st Birthday








Rubber tapping requires serious patience. You strip the bark, then wait — drip, drip, drip — as the liquid appears. Eventually, the waiting pays off, and the drops unite into a beautiful, valuable collection.

Chico Mendez’s life was similar. A second-generation tapper, he passed his days like most other workers: waiting. But inspiration struck — drip! — and he worked to unite his fellow tappers to fight for rainforest preservation. Then, he went global — drip! — bringing the National Council of Rubber Tappers to life, and speaking for human rights and environmentalism. He saw how his small efforts grew into a movement, saying: “At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rainforest. Now, I realize, I am fighting for humanity.”

Today’s doodle by Kevin Laughlin commemorates Mendez, who was tragically assassinated for his brave efforts.

[9A]

Dec 14, 2015
BKS Iyengar’s 97th Birthday




B.K.S. Iyengar, it’s been said, could hold a headstand for nearly half an hour well into his eighties. He was instrumental in bringing yoga to the West, beloved by followers on nearly every continent [[certainly a few of his techniques have reached a base camp somewhere in Antarctica, but we couldn’t be sure), and advised such aspiring yogis as Aldous Huxley, Sachin Tendulkar, and Queen Elizabeth of Belgium. His style--Iyengar Yoga--is characterized by tremendous control and discipline, which he exercised in ways not limited to confoundingly long headstands.

To remember the pioneering and deeply spiritual yogi on what would have been his 97th birthday, Kevin Laughlin used a few of the master’s poses, or asanas, to help complete the logo on today’s homepage.

[9A]

Dec 7, 2015
Matilde Pérez's 99th Birthday




Borrowing ideas from the kinetic style that made Matilde Pérez an internationally recognized artist, Nate Swinehart added some movement to today’s homepage. Born in 1916, Pérez painted and sculpted into her nineties, using the interplay of abstract shapes and sharp colors to create optical and aesthetic effects of motion. Today would have been her 99th birthday. Feliz cumpleaños, Matilde.

[9A]

Nov 29, 2015
42nd Anniversary of the official recognition of the letter ё



Use of the character Ë in the English language is relatively rare. Some publications, such as the American magazine The New Yorker, use it more often than others. It is used to indicate that the e is to be pronounced separately from the preceding vowel [[e.g. in the word "reëntry", the feminine name "Chloë" or in the masculine name "Raphaël"), or at all - like in the name of the Brontë sisters, where without diaeresis the final e would be mute.

[9A]

Jan 19, 2016
Sophie Taeuber-Arp’s 127th Birthday




Gracing the face of every Swiss 50 franc bill is the straightforward gaze of a dark-eyed woman. Behind this serious portrait lies one of Switzerland's most colorful artists: Sophie Taeuber-Arp, whose 127th birthday we celebrate today!

Taeuber-Arp was a Swiss artist, designer, architect and dancer. Notably, she’s one of the most important artists of geometric abstraction – her minimalistic style, which is reflected in her textile artwork, marionettes, interiors, drawings, paintings, reliefs and sculptures, makes her distinguished amongst other artists of the early 20th century.

[9A]

Nov 24, 2015
41st Anniversary of the discovery of Lucy



On November 24th, 1974, as dusk settled upon the southern edge of the Afar Triangle near a village called Hadar, a team of scientists organized by Yves Coppens, Maurice Taieb and Donald Johanson toasted a tremendous discovery. They had been scouring this region for weeks--an area Taieb had brought to the forefront of anthropological research years earlier--and that morning their search paid enormous dividends with the find of Dr. Johanson and his student Tom Gray. The skeletal fragments unearthed in the Ethiopian landscape made up the most complete example of Australopithecus afarensis ever found.

While they celebrated, a small tape recorder blared ”Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”, again and again. And then it struck someone--what finer name than Lucy for the incredible specimen pulled from the sand that day?

In the coming months and years, this find would upend our understanding of bipedalism, and rewrite a significant chapter in the story of human evolution. To recognize the 41st anniversary of this historic moment, Kevin Laughlin has brought Lucy and her upright gait to life on our homepage.

[9A]

August 6, 2015
Adoniran Barbosa's 105th Birthday





Music tells stories, stirs emotions, and inspires change, all while getting us to nod our heads along or burst into wild swings. The right mix of melody and message is a language all its own.

Adoniran Barbosa spoke that language fluently. In Brazil, he's known as one of the most influential samba singers the genre's ever seen. But he did more than craft toe-tapping tunes. Adoniran uplifted the working men and women of São Paulo with his expressive storytelling, bringing the city's malocas and cortiços to life through iconic songs like Saudosa Maloca [["Shanty of Fond Memories").

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Dec 19, 2016
Franz Sacher’s 200th Birthday





In the world of baked goods, few cakes have the culinary status–or intriguing backstory–of the Sacher-Torte, first concocted by the Austrian confectioner, Franz Sacher, in Vienna in 1832.

Perhaps destiny had a hand in its creation. Sacher was a 16-year-old apprentice honing his craft in the court of Austrian state chancellor, Prince Metternich, when the kitchen was tasked with creating a special dessert for the prince’s fussy guests. On the day of the dinner, the chef became ill, and the tall order fell to Sacher.

The trainee whipped up a chocolate cake topped with apricot jam and bittersweet chocolate icing. It was a hit with the prince’s guests, but it wasn’t until Sacher’s son Eduard refined the recipe decades later, that the Sacher-Torte became a Viennese sensation.

Today, the dessert is a signature of Café Sacher in Vienna's Hotel Sacher [[and other locations in Austria). The authentic recipe for the Original Sacher-Torte remains a deep, dark, delicious secret.

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Nov 30, 2015
Lucy Maud Montgomery’s 141st Birthday





Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote her first novel in 1905. It was rejected by every single publishing house that received it. A few years later, Montgomery tried shopping it again and succeeded. Her story about the adventures of a red-headed girl in Prince Edward Island became a smash hit. That novel ultimately became one of Canada’s most all-time popular books, being translated into around 20 languages and selling more than 50 million copies to date. Anne of Green Gables and its many sequels made Montgomery a wildly successful author and turned PEI into a destination for the book’s thousands of fans.

One of Canada’s most celebrated writers, Montgomery also wrote hundreds of poems and short stories as well as a number of novels apart from the Anne series. She was the first Canadian woman to be made a member of the British Royal Society of Arts and was also appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. Today, on what would have been her 141st birthday, we salute Lucy Maud Montgomery with a Doodle that pays tribute to her most iconic book.