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15 April 2012
Wilhelm Busch's 180th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Hi...7o0KIko9Q=s660
Heinrich Christian Wilhelm Busch was a German humorist, poet, illustrator, and painter. He published wildly innovative illustrated tales that remain influential to this day.
Busch drew on the tropes of folk humour as well as a profound knowledge of German literature and art to satirize contemporary life, any kind of piety, Catholicism, Philistinism, religious morality, bigotry, and moral uplift.
His mastery of drawing and verse became deeply influential for future generations of comic artists and vernacular poets. Among many notable influences, The Katzenjammer Kids was inspired by Busch's Max and Moritz. Today, the Wilhelm Busch Prize and the Wilhelm Busch Museum help maintain his legacy. The 175th anniversary of his birth in 2007 was celebrated throughout Germany. Busch remains one of the most influential poets and artists in Western Europe.
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14 Apr 2012
Robert Doisneau's 100th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ZI...DWAD1q-oQ=s660
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.
Doisneau is renowned for his 1950 image Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville [The Kiss by the City Hall], a photograph of a couple kissing on a busy Parisian street.
He was appointed a Chevalier [Knight] of the Legion of Honour in 1984 by then French president, François Mitterrand.
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If a picture's worth a 1,000 words, what're a few more letters?
In the case of creating a doodle with well-known images, my natural inclination is to re-stage the composition to work in the characters of the Google logo. Today's inspiring doodle subject, however, anticipated this move many years ago with the following, oft-repeated pearl of wisdom:
"The marvels of daily life are exciting; no [Google doodler] can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street." - Robert Doisneau
Point taken. So, in lieu of heading to Paris in the Google X time machine, the best I could do to create a doodle homage to Monsieur Doisneau's oeuvre of incroyable photography was to employ a little digital trickery with the original source material. [Photobombing, essentially.]
My first pass with this approach was taking one of his most iconic photographs, Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville and trying to sneak in the Google logo:
This proved problematic for two reasons: 1] this treasure finder of a photographer had captured too many moments to highlight just one gem 2] I couldn't bear the thought of re-cropping a masterpiece.
The solution? Mucking up several masterpieces.
Arranging a seemingly casual stack of photographs, I placed 3D models of the letters into four different magical moments that Robert Doisneau captured on film:
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10 Apr 2012
Lee Jung-seob's 96th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/E9...rdWLrjii2=s660
Lee Jung Seob was a Korean artist, most known for his oil paintings such as "White Ox".
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9 Apr 2012
Elias Lönnrot's 210th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/eS...hrzt-0EFD=s660
Elias Lönnrotwas a Finnish physician, philologist and collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry. He is best known for creating the Finnish national epic, Kalevala, [1835, enlarged 1849], from short ballads and lyric poems gathered from the Finnish oral tradition during several expeditions in Finland, Russian Karelia, the Kola Peninsula and Baltic countries.
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9 April 2021
Amácio Mazzaropi's 109th birthday
https://www.google.com/logos/doodles...08343.2-2x.png
Today’s Doodle, illustrated by Brazilian guest artist Arthur Vergani, celebrates Brazilian actor, screenwriter, producer, and director Amácio Mazzaropi on his 109th birthday. Through his signature role as the beloved character “Jeca Tatu,” Mazzaropi used humor to address serious topics and became a fixture of Brazilian cinema.
Born on this day in São Paulo in 1912, Mazzaropi spent time as a child visiting his grandfather’s country home, which influenced the on-screen persona he later developed. As a teenager, the future icon of Brazilian comedy left home to work for Circo La Paz, a traveling circus. There he came up with the idea to perform as a hillbilly, embodied in Marazzaropi’s future performance as Monteiro Lobato’s character Jeca Tatu.
Mazzaropi produced content for radio and television for many years before appearing in his first film, “Sai da Frente” [“Get Out of the Way,” 1952]. With his film career off the ground, and after several other roles, Mazzaropi bought Fazenda Santa, a farm turned studio that also served as the location for many of his films. It was here that Mazzaropi opened his own production company in 1958.
Mazzaropi wove social commentary into simple language and covered important subjects to great effect, which caused audiences to flock to his productions for over 20 years.
Interestingly, while Mazzaropi became one of Brazil’s most acclaimed comedic actors, he was also a major supplier of milk to Leites Paulista. Today, Fazenda Santa is Hotel Fazenda Mazzaropi, home to the Mazzaropi Museum, which has a collection of over 20,000 items.
Happy birthday, Amácio Mazzaropi!
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9 April 2021
Clive Sullivan's 78th birthday
https://www.google.com/logos/doodles...7108700-2x.png
Today’s Doodle celebrates the 78th birthday of Welsh-born rugby winger and coach Clive Sullivan, who made history as the first Black captain of any major British sports team when he was selected to lead the country’s national side, the Great Britain national rugby league team, The Lions.
Clive Sullivan was born on this day in the Splott district of Cardiff, Wales. From a young age, he was drawn to the sport of rugby, often playing in school. By his teenage years, he had suffered various rugby-related injuries that required operations on his knees, feet, and shoulders, leading doctors to state he’d never walk normally again. However, Sullivan refused to let this hold him back and worked to overcome his childhood injuries. At just 17, his perseverance paid off when he accepted a trial for Hull Football Club, whom he impressed so much with his tremendous speed that they signed him as a professional player the very next day.
Sullivan went on to play over 350 games with Hull FC and over 200 with Hull Kingston Rovers, cementing his status as one of rugby’s most formidable opposition wingers. In 1967, he made his international debut for Great Britain, which granted him his historic captaincy in 1972. After a stint as a coach for Hull FC, the team unexpectedly called him back to compete once again as a player at the age of 39.
To honor Sullivan, a section of one of Hull’s most prominent roads was renamed Clive Sullivan Way in 1985.
Happy birthday, Clive Sullivan - Thank you for breaking barriers and opening doors for generations to come.
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9 April 2012
Eadweard J. Muybridge's 182nd Birthday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cbI0fx5XN8
Eadweard Muybridge was an English photographer important for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion, and early work in motion-picture projection. He adopted the first name Eadweard as the original Anglo-Saxon form of Edward, and the surname Muybridge, believing it to be similarly archaic.
Born in Kingston upon Thames in the United Kingdom, at age 20 he emigrated to America as a bookseller, first to New York, and then to San Francisco. Planning a return trip to Europe in 1860, he suffered serious head injuries in a stagecoach crash in Texas. He spent the next few years recuperating in Kingston upon Thames, where he took up professional photography, learning the wet-plate collodion process, and secured at least two British patents for his inventions. He went back to San Francisco in 1867. In 1868 he exhibited large photographs of Yosemite Valley, which made him world-famous.
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4 Apr 2012
Senegal Independence Day 2012
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Nv...diww57E4w=s660
Senegal is a unitarypresidential republic and is the western-most country in Afro-Eurasia. It owes its name to the Senegal River, which borders it to the east and north. Senegal covers a land area of almost 197,000 square kilometres [76,000 sq mi] and has a population of around 16 million.
The state was formed as part of the independence of French West Africa from French colonial rule. Because of this history, the official language is French. Like other post-colonial African states, the country includes a wide mix of ethnic and linguistic communities, with the largest being the Wolof, Fula, and Serer people, and the Wolof and French languages acting as lingua francas.
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1 April 2009
200th Anniversary of Gogol
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/JG...CIY6Z9EOI=s660
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was a Russian novelist, short story writer and playwright of Ukrainian origin.
Gogol was one of the first to use the techniques of surrealism and the grotesque in his works ["The Nose", "Viy", "The Overcoat", "Nevsky Prospekt"]. Kornelije Kvas wrote that "the logical construction of Gogol’s The Petersburg Tales remains realistic, for the grotesque and fantastic elements fit in with the realistic matrix of events, following the logic of events that is close to the regularity of the unfolding of events in the reality that is accessible to us".
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1 April 2019
Sawong 'Lor Tok' Supsamruay's 105th Birthday
https://www.google.com/logos/doodles...49312.2-2x.jpg
Rising from humble beginnings to become one of Thailand’s most acclaimed comedic actors, Sawong Supsamruay—known to audiences as Lor Tok—appeared in more than 1000 films, and stars in today’s Doodle.
Born in Bangkok on this day in 1914, Supsamruay worked on his family’s orchard as a boy until it was destroyed by a flood. He later made a living tending riverboats, driving a bicycle rickshaw, and boxing professionally. After joining a comedy troupe, he got his first chance to act on screen in the 1933 film Wan Chakayan, officially kicking off a 50+ year acting career.
Supsamruay’s portrayal of a poor man named Lor Tok who forgets his roots after striking it rich in the popular film Klai Kuer Kin Kuer resonated so much with audiences that the name stuck throughout the rest of his career. Unlike this character, Supsamruay stayed true to himself no matter how successful he became, bringing a self-deprecating charm to his roles as the amusing sidekick to various leading men during the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s.
Although best known for his comedies, Lor Tok took on dramatic roles as well, winning a Thai National Film Association award for his performance as a moneylender in Money, Money, Money. Beyond acting, Lor Tok started his own production company, where he both directed and starred in films. In 1995 he was named a National Artist of Thailand in recognition of his outstanding accomplishments in the performing arts.
The actor’s larger-than-life legacy was introduced to a younger Thai generation through the animated Dracula Tok Show, which caricatured the beloved comedian. Today, fans can also visit the Lor Tok Museum, opened by his widow in the simple wooden house they shared together.
Happy 105th Birthday, Lor Tok!
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29 Mar 2019
Novera Ahmed's 80th Birthday
https://www.google.com/logos/doodles...6278144-2x.jpg
Today’s Doodle celebrates the pioneering artist Novera Ahmed, who is considered the first modern sculptor in Bangladesh and whose distinctive work borrowed from Western, folk, indigenous, and Buddhist themes to reflect the experiences of women.
Ahmed was born in 1939 during a sea crocodile hunt in the largest mangrove swamp in the Ganges. She was drawn to sculpture from a young age, inspired by watching her mother make dolls and clay houses. When her father attempted to marry her off to a noble family, she resisted, insisting that she wanted to become a sculptor.
Ahmed studied design at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in London, graduating in 1955 and going on to receive further training in Florence and Vienna. She rose to prominence in 1960 with Inner Gaze, the first-ever solo sculpture exhibition by any sculptor in Bangladesh or Pakistan. A collaboration with painter Hamidur Rahman resulted in the Shaheed Minar, a national monument in Dhaka commemorating the Bengali Language Movement demonstrations of 1952.
In 1963, Ahmed bid farewell to her home and settled permanently in Paris. Two years traveling through East Asia inspired a departure in form, yielding several assemblages made from the debris of American warplanes. In 1997, Ahmed received an Ekushey Padak, the second highest civilian award in Bangladesh.
Today, many of her works can be viewed at the Novera Ahmed Museum, founded in 2018 by her husband in the small town of La Roche-Guyon outside of Paris.
Happy 80th birthday, Novera Ahmed!
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27 Mar 2019
Raúl Soldi’s 114th Birthday
https://www.google.com/logos/doodles...4056320-2x.jpg
Today’s Doodle celebrates the Argentinian artist Raúl Soldi, who was born in Buenos Aires on this day in 1905. From painting watercolors and church frescos to designing mosaics, theatrical costumes, stage sets, and even department store windows, his creativity spanned mediums.
The son of a cellist and opera singer, Soldi was inspired to devote his life to art after traveling through Europe in his youth. He spent five years studying in Milan, supporting himself by making illustrations for advertisements before returning to Argentina where he found work painting sets for the movie studio Argentina Sono Film and designing window displays for Harrod’s. Along the way, he also showed his work in Paris, New York, and San Francisco.
While studying scenery design in the U.S., Soldi met his future wife, Estela Gaitán, who encouraged him to devote himself to fine art. In 1953, he was commissioned to paint frescoes at the church of Santa Ana in Buenos Aires, followed by the Colón Theater in 1966. He was also commissioned to create mosaics in various churches and public spaces.
Recognized in his country and globally, a 1992 retrospective at Argentina’s Palais de Glace attracted some 500,000 visitors and his work was honored with an award at the 1958 Biennale of São Paulo, Brazil. His art can be found in many international collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Happy 114th Birthday, Raúl Soldi!
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26 Mar 2019
Bangladesh Independence Day 2019
https://www.google.com/logos/doodles...5658368-2x.jpg
Today’s Doodle celebrates Independence Day in Bangladesh, the South Asian nation situated on the Bay of Bengal and a deltaic nation with almost 700 rivers flowing through it!
On this day in 1971, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, often titled Bangabandhu [which translates to “friend of Bengal”], signed a declaration that made the former East Pakistan the sovereign and independent country of Bangladesh with its own unique language and culture. This founding document followed Bangabandhu’s historic speech, delivered on March 7.
A public holiday in Bangladesh, Independence Day is commemorated with parades, fairs, and concerts as well as patriotic speeches. A festive spirit fills the capital city of Dhaka, where the Bangladesh flag flies proudly, and many government buildings are lit up with the national colors: green and red. The green symbolizes Bangladesh’s abundant flora and the potential of the nation’s youth while the red circle in the middle of the flag represents the sun rising over the relatively new and developing country.
Joy Bangla!
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26 March 2013
Prokop Diviš's 315th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Gf...GU72XVEy-=s660
Prokop Diviš was a Czech canon regular, theologian and natural scientist. In an attempt to prevent thunderstorms from occurring, he inadvertently constructed one of the first grounded lightning rods.
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15 March 2016
80th Anniversary of Kasprowy Wierch cableway launch
https://www.google.com/logos/doodles...86272-hp2x.gif
The great beauty of the Tatra Mountains is rivaled only by the enthusiasm with which hikers and skiers mount its slopes. The panoramic vistas visible at nearly every stage of ascent up the Kasprowy Wierch summit are studded with meadows, streams, and rich pine forests. Snaking between Poland and Slovakia, the Tatra is a highly-protected national park, unreachable by traditional means, unless one is able to hike or ski 3 hours up the trail.
That all changed 80 years ago when a cableway was built in Zakopane to carry people up to the summit of Kasprowy Wierch. In Doodler Alyssa Winans' animation, you can see the cable car sway and swing in the frosty mountain air as it makes its ascent. The cable car was one of the first of its kind, and is still used today. This technological advancement made the grandeur of the mountains accessible to many more people.
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14 Mar 2012
Akira Yoshizawa's 101st Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Es...t-d8HbJWw=s660\
We’re excited to have Robert J. Lang here to talk about today’s doodle in honor of Akira Yoshizawa. Lang is considered one of the world’s masters of the art of origami. His design techniques are used by origami artists around the world, and he lectures widely on the connections between origami art, science, mathematics and technology. - Ed.
Akira Yoshizawa [1911–2005] is widely regarded as the father of the modern origami art form. Over the course of his life, he created tens of thousands of origami works and pioneered many of the artistic techniques used by modern-day origami artists, most notably the technique of wet-folding, which allowed the use of thick papers and created soft curves, gentle shapes and rounded, organic forms. He also developed a notation for origami that has now been the standard for origami instruction for more than 50 years.
Yoshizawa took up Japan's traditional folk art of origami in his 20s, and eventually left his job at a factory to focus full-time on his origami creations. His work came to the attention of the west in 1955, after an exhibition of his works in Amsterdam, and rapidly spread around the world. In his last decades, he received worldwide renown and invitations from all over, culminating in his award in 1983 of the Order of the Rising Sun.
I had the great fortune to meet Yoshizawa several times. In 1988, he came to New York to visit The Friends of the Origami Center of America, and spoke at a panel discussion I attended. There, he addressed a wide range of topics: one's mental attitude, the importance of character, of natural qualities, of having one's "spirit within [the artwork's] folds." Although he was the consummate artist, his work and approach was infused with the mathematical and geometric underpinnings of origami as well as a deep aesthetic sense:
“My origami creations, in accordance with the laws of nature, require the use of geometry, science, and physics. They also encompass religion, philosophy, and biochemistry. Over all, I want you to discover the joy of creation by your own hand…the possibility of creation from paper is infinite.” - Akira Yoshizawa
While there were other Japanese artists who explored their country’s folk art contemporaneously with Yoshizawa, his work inspired the world through a combination of grace, beauty, variety and clarity of presentation. To him, each figure, even if folded from the same basic plan, was a unique object with a unique character.
In 1992, I was invited to address the Nippon Origami Association at their annual meeting in Japan, and my hosts arranged for me to meet the great Yoshizawa at his home and studio. When I was ushered into the inner sanctum, Yoshizawa greeted me, grinning, and then proceeded to show me box after box after drawer of the most extraordinarily folded works I had ever seen.
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When I was first approached by Google to help create a doodle commemorating Yoshizawa’s work, I jumped at the chance. Google set the parameters of the design: the Google logo, of course, but to be folded with origami and then decorated with examples of Yoshizawa's designs.
I created examples of two logo styles for Google to choose from: one in a classic origami style and a more three-dimensional version based on pleats. Google liked the pleated version, so I set about designing and folding the rest.
To design these [or any letter form in this style), one can take a narrow strip of paper, fold it back and forth to trace the outline of the desired letter, unfold it, mark the creases, then arrange multiple copies of the strip pattern on a larger rectangle. The resulting crease pattern is moderately complex, and it gives a lovely 3-D form when folded, but conceptually, it is quite straightforward.
If you’d like to try to create your own origami doodle at home, you can download PDFs of the crease patterns for each of the letters. Print them out and fold on the lines: red=valley fold, blue=mountain.
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14 March 2020
Mohammed Khadda’s 90th birthday
https://www.google.com/logos/doodles...7108313-2x.jpg
“The history of painting is tied to that of humanity,” said one of the founding fathers of Algerian contemporary painting Mohammed Khadda, who is celebrated in today’s Doodle.
Born on this day in 1930 in the Algerian port city of Mostaganem, Khadda developed a passion for art during his formative years working at a local printing press. The sketches and illustrations he drew for the company’s books instilled in him a deep appreciation for calligraphy and his Arab roots.
In his late teens, Khadda decided to formally hone his artistic skills at the School of Fine Arts in the neighboring city of Oran, learning a variety of new techniques, from watercolors to sculpture. In 1953, a journey across the Mediterranean beckoned his name, and Khadda left for Paris to pursue his artistic career.
The vibrant Parisian art community passed invaluable knowledge onto Khadda. Studying under prolific artists such as Pablo Picasso, he tactfully refined his expression in the years that led up to his 1960 debut. His paintings often showcased a blend of his African heritage with Western styles on canvasses featuring Arabic calligraphy meshed with his non-figurative abstract work. This distinct combination became Khadda’s calling card, and he gradually came to represent a new genre of Algerian artists.
After a decade abroad, Khadda moved back to newly independent Algeria, where he began to cultivate the talent of artists in his hometown. Khadda and his work continue to influence artists in Africa and beyond.
عيد ميلاد سعيد يا محمد الخدة!
[Happy birthday, Mohammed Khadda!]
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14 March 2009
Giovanni Schiaparelli's Birthday
https://www.google.com/logos/2009/schiaparelli09.gif
Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli was an Italian astronomer and science historian.
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20 Mar 2009
First Day of Spring 2009 - Design by Eric Carle
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/bT...kSxGD42GA=s660
Eric Carle [June 25, 1929 – May 23, 2021*] was an American-German author, designer and illustrator of children's books. His picture book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, first published in 1969, has been translated into more than 66 languages and sold more than 50 million copies. His career as an illustrator and children's book author took off after he collaborated on Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?. He illustrated more than 70 books, most of which he also wrote, and more than 145 million copies of his books have been sold around the world.
In 2003, the American Library Association awarded Carle the biennial Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal [now called the Children's Literature Legacy Award], a prize for writers or illustrators of children's books published in the U.S. who have made lasting contributions to the field. Carle was also a U.S. nominee for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2010.
[* RIP -- Eric Carle. Thank you for The Very Hungry Caterpillar. ]
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2 Mar 2009
Dr Seuss' 105th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/J6...GoyD9M31A=s660
Theodor Seuss Geisel [ March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991] was an American children's author, political cartoonist, illustrator, poet, animator, and filmmaker. He is known for his work writing and illustrating more than 60 books under the pen name Dr. Seuss. His work includes many of the most popular children's books of all time, selling over 600 million copies and being translated into more than 20 languages by the time of his death.
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2 March 2021
Wangdee Nima [Wang Tae]'s 96th birthday
https://www.google.com/logos/doodles...08872.2-2x.png
Today’s Doodle celebrates the life and legacy of Thai musician Wangdee Nima, a performer affectionately known by his stage name Wang Tae.
Born on this day in central Thailand in 1925, Wang Tae inherited a love for music from his parents, both of whom were performers of traditional Thai folk genres. As a child, he became a specialist in Lam Tad, a style of music that originated in his home region. This popular folk genre brings groups of men and women together to alternate singing improvised humorous lyrics to elicit laughs from the audience, all set against the background of instruments like the Klong Ramana, a traditional Thai hand drum.
Wang Tae soon established his own troupe, eponymously named “Lam Tad Wang Te,” which earned him national recognition and widespread appeal. Renowned for his clever lyrics with his cunning use of double entendres, Wang Tae was a true master of the Thai language whose witty performances brought smiles to the faces of audiences across Thailand for close to forty years.
In 1988, Wang Tae was named a National Artist of Thailand, an annual prize awarded by the National Culture Commission of Thailand to the country’s most prestigious performing artists.
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2 March 2012
János Arany's 195th birthday
https://www.google.com/logos/2012/ja...ny-2012-hp.jpg
János Arany was a Hungarian poet, writer, translator and journalist. He is often said to be the "Shakespeare of ballads" – he wrote more than 102 ballads that have been translated into over 50 languages, as well as the Toldi trilogy.
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1 Mar 2012
Quinquela Martín's 122nd Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/YI...tuW7VBIpg=s660
Benito Quinquela Martín was an Argentine painter. Quinquela Martín is considered the port painter-par-excellence and one of the most popular Argentine painters. His paintings of port scenes show the activity, vigor and roughness of the daily life in the port of La Boca.
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29 Feb 2012
Marcela Paz's 110th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/3x...sNTtsje-Q=s660
Marcela Paz was the pen name of Esther Huneeus Ramos Falla Salas de Claro, a Chilean writer. She also used the pen names of Paula de la Sierra, Lukim Retse, P. Neka and Juanita Godoy. She was a recipient of the National Prize for Literature.
In 1947 Paz published the first book with her most famous character, Papelucho. Papelucho became a companion and an inspiration to generations of children and perhaps one of Chile's most well known humanized characters of the twentieth century. Between 1964 and 1967, she directed the Asociación Internacional del Libro Juvenil, the Chilean chapter of the International Board on Books for Young People [IBBY].
In 1968 she received a Hans Christian Andersen honour diploma. In 1979 she received the gold medal from the Instituto Cultural de Providencia. In 1982, she was awarded with the Premio Nacional de Literatura de Chile.
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29 February 2012
Gioachino Rossini's 220th Birthday/Leap Year 2012
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/oC...0ThEe7zVA=s660
Every so often two things happen on the same day that we'd be remiss not to celebrate. In the past there's been St. George's Day and Shakespeare's birthday in the UK, Fourth of July and Rube Goldberg's birthday in the US, and Valentine's Day/Figure skating for the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In this day's case, it's the 220th birthday of Italian composer Gioachino Antonio Rossini and leap year. [Or, if you're only counting actually leap day's for birthdays it's something like Gioachino's 53rd.]
At any count, in the grand tradition of opera singing cartoons, I created an illustration that captures the climatic scene of Rossini's most famous work, The Barber of Seville, as portrayed by a cast of goofy-looking frogs.
Hope y'all enjoyed it!
posted by Ryan Germick
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13 June 2021
Aurélia de Souza's 155th birthday
https://www.google.com/logos/doodles...7108962-2x.png
Today’s Doodle celebrates the 155th birthday of Portuguese artist Aurélia de Souza, one of the few women whose work was exhibited in galleries alongside Portugal’s great 19th century painters. Infused with strokes of realist and impressionist influences, de Souza’s naturalist paintings served as windows into daily Portuguese life through landscapes of her journeys and her personal favorite genre: self- and family portraits.
On this day in 1866, Maria Aurélia de Souza was born to Portuguese immigrants in Valparaíso, Chile. Her family returned to their homeland after acquiring a farm along the Douro river near Porto, Portugal. It was on these idyllic banks that de Souza began to paint and draw at the age of 16. After only three years, she painted her first self-portrait—an art form that became her hallmark.
In 1893, de Souza further refined her talent in the Portuguese tradition as a student of the Porto Academy of Fine Arts. De Souza moved to Paris in 1899, where she expanded her palette as an apprentice of several French masters. After one year in her new home, she captured herself dressed wearing a red-coat in the oil painting “Self-Portrait,” a work widely regarded as her most famous. She continued to draw influence from the international arts in the years that followed, traveling across Europe before returning to Portugal in 1902.
De Souza’s paintings were regularly featured at her alma mater, just one of the many prestigious Portuguese galleries that championed her work. In addition to her lifelong work as a painter, de Souza also illustrated for Portuguese magazines and the 1913 short story entitled “Perfis Suaves” [“Smooth Profiles”].
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13 June 2016
Theodosia Okoh’s 94th birthday
https://www.google.com/logos/doodles...46432-hp2x.jpg
Happy Birthday Theodosia Salome Okoh! Affectionately known as “Dosia, Mama Maa” or simply “Maa,” she was a very influential Ghanaian, best known for designing the country’s national flag.
For today's blog post, the Google team collaborated with Okoh's family who shared Okoh’s vision for the flag. From her family: “She always said that the ends of the Black Star must touch the bottom line of the red band and the top line of the green band in the flag.”
Fifty nine years after Okoh first designed the flag, the vibrant stripes of red, yellow, and green behind a black star, remain a strong symbol of national pride and identity for the Ghanaian people.
Okoh, who would have been 94 years old today, was not only an artist but an athlete who led the Ghanaian hockey team to their first ever World Cup appearance. The team also won the Fair Play Award, Ghana's first ever international hockey award, during her tenure. She went on to become the first female chairman of the Ghana Hockey Association and later, served as President of the Ghana Hockey Federation for 20 years. To honor her contributions, the hockey stadium in the center of Accra is named after her.
When the Mayor of Accra sought to change the name, she defended it with the same zeal she showed during games. According to Okoh's family, "Many people in Ghana will remember the infamous cartoon of her pulling the mayor of Accra’s beard in one hand with an oversize pair of scissors in the other, threatening to cut off his beard for having the gall to try and change the name of the hockey stadium."
We hope today’s Doodle by Alyssa Winans inspires people everywhere to pursue their passions, and Ghanaians to celebrate their magnificent flag and the powerful woman behind it.
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30 June 2020
Celebrating Marsha P. Johnson
https://www.google.com/logos/doodles...7108797-2x.jpg
Today’s Doodle, illustrated by Los Angeles-based guest artist Rob Gilliam, celebrates LGBTQ+ rights activist, performer, and self-identified drag queen Marsha P. Johnson, who is widely credited as one of the pioneers of the LGBTQ+ rights movement in the United States. On this day in 2019, Marsha was posthumously honored as a grand marshal of the New York City Pride March.
Marsha P. Johnson was born on August 24th, 1945, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. After graduating high school in 1963, she moved to New York City’s Greenwich Village, a burgeoning cultural hub for LGBTQ+ people. Here, she legally changed her name to Marsha P. Johnson. Her middle initial—“P.”—allegedly stood for her response to those who questioned her gender: “Pay It No Mind.”
A beloved and charismatic fixture in the LGBTQ+ community, Johnson is credited as one of the key leaders of the 1969 Stonewall uprising— widely regarded as a critical turning point for the international LGBTQ+ rights movement. The following year, she founded the Street Transvestite [now Transgender] Action Revolutionaries [STAR] with fellow transgender activist Sylvia Rivera. STAR was the first organization in the U.S. to be led by a trans woman of color and was the first to open North America’s first shelter for LGBTQ+ youth.
In 2019, New York City announced plans to erect statues of Johnson and Rivera in Greenwich Village, which will be one of the world’s first monuments in honor of transgender people.
Thank you, Marsha P. Johnson, for inspiring people everywhere to stand up for the freedom to be themselves.
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[Additional interesting material about the creators of this Google Doodle]
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30 June 2016
165th Anniversary of First Firefighter's Corp in Chile
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Since 1851, Chile’s bomberos have risked life and limb to keep citizens safe from fire. There are 307 individual fire departments across Chile bonded together by Chile’s National Board of Fire Departments. What makes the bomberos especially unique is that they all serve on a volunteer basis.
It all started on this day in the bustling seaport of Valparaiso, where the city’s most influential citizens came together to form the First Firefighter’s Corp. More fire departments followed, each created by and for the community it represented.
Today’s Doodle was inspired by those who’ve served the people of Chile through their dedication and selflessness. Though they operate independently, the country’s bomberos share a common goal of working hard to protect local neighborhoods and communities.
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30 June 2013
Herta Heuwer's 100th Birthday
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Herta Charlotte Heuwer owned and ran a food kiosk in West Berlin. She is frequently credited with the invention of the take-out dish that would become the world-renowned currywurst, supposedly on 4 September 1949. The original Currywurst was a boiled sausage, fried, with a sauce of tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, curry powder and other ingredients.
Heuwer was born in Königsberg. In January 1951, she registered a trademark for her sauce, Chillup.
Heuwer moved her business to a larger facility at Kaiser-Friedrich-Straße 59, which, during its heyday, was open day and night and employed 19 saleswomen. On 29 June 2003, the day before what would have been her 90th birthday, a plaque was dedicated in her honor at this address.
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30 June 2011
Czeslaw Milosz's 100th Birthday
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Czesław Miłosz was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat.
Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In its citation, the Swedish Academy called Miłosz a writer who "voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts".
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24 Jun 2011
Festa Junina
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Festas Juninas also known as festas de São João for their part in celebrating the nativity of St. John the Baptist [June 24], are the annual Brazilian celebrations adapted from European Midsummer that take place in the southern midwinter. These festivities, which were introduced by the Portuguese during the colonial period [1500–1822], are celebrated during the month of June nationwide. The festival is mainly celebrated on the eves of the Catholic solemnities of Saint Anthony, Saint John the Baptist, and Saint Peter.
Since Northeastern Brazil is largely arid or semi-arid, these festivals not only coincide with the end of the rainy seasons of most states in the northeast, but they also provide people with an opportunity to give thanks to Saint John for the rain [even though he is not responsible for it]. They also celebrate rural life and feature typical clothing, food, and dance [particularly quadrilha, which is similar to square dancing].
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22 Feb 2012
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz's 155th Birthday
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Heinrich Rudolf Hertzwas a German physicist who first conclusively proved the existence of the electromagnetic waves predicted by James Clerk Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism. The unit of frequency, cycle per second, was named the "hertz" in his honor.
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22 February 2013
Victor Brecheret's 119th Birthday
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Victor Brecheret, born Vittorio Breheret, was an Italian-Brazilian sculptor. He lived most of his life in São Paulo, except for his studies in Paris in his early twenties. Brecheret's work combines techniques of European modernist sculpture with references to his native country through the physical characteristics of his human forms and visual motifs drawn from Brazilian folk art. Many of his subjects are figures from the Bible or classical mythology.
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22 February 2016
Lantern Festival 2016
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The Lantern Festival marks the 15th day of the Lunar New Year, the last day of the Spring Festival, and one very bright day for the night sky.
Guest Doodler Patrick Leger chose to honor this day with a tribute to the lighting of paper lanterns, which speckle the night sky on this special occasion. The lanterns represent a smooth transition into the new year and the shedding of one’s past.
The Festival is known for traditions in addition to lantern lighting—lion dances, and eating tangyuan, to name a few. With today’s Doodle, we join in the celebration.
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17 Feb 2016
Rene Laennec’s 235th Birthday
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Late in 1816, while examining a patient suffering complications of the heart, René Laennec’s memory of a stroll taken months prior came rushing back. Walking the courtyard of the Louvre that day, he observed two children playing with a long stick--one scraped it with a pin while the other listened giddily to the amplified sound on the other end.
Recalling this, Laennec rolled up a piece of paper and pressed it to his patient’s chest. The beating of her heart was suddenly audible and clear, and the stethoscope--an innovation that would fundamentally change the detection and diagnosis of lung and heart problems--was born.
After several prototypes, he settled on an instrument that resembled a long, wooden tube. Using his invention, Laennec continued his research on sound in diagnostic medicine and made several important contributions to the field. To celebrate what would have been his 235th birthday, artists Helene Leroux and Olivia When depicted Laennec’s very first stethoscope beside the one we know today.
Happy birthday, Dr. Laennec.
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17 February 2012
Agniya Barto's 106th birthday
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Agniya Lvovna Barto was a Soviet poet and children's writer of Russian Jewish origin.
During World War II. she wrote patriotic anti-Nazi poetry, often directly addressed to the leader of the Soviet people, Joseph Stalin. She also worked as a Western Front correspondent for the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. In 1949, she was awarded the Stalin Prize for her book Poetry for Children.
During the 1960s, Barto worked in an orphanage that inspired her to write the poem Zvenigorod.
She was the author of the script for the children's films Foundling, An Elephant and a Rope 1945, Alyosha Ptitsyn builds his character, 1953, 10,000 Boys, 1962, Find a Person, 1973.
For nine years, Barto was the anchor of the radio program Find a Person, which helped people find family members lost during World War II. During that time she helped to reunite no fewer than a thousand families. She wrote a book about it in 1966. In 1977, she published Translations from the Children's Language composed of her translations of poetry written by children of different countries. She died in Moscow in 1981.