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19 Nov 2011
Mikhail Lomonosov's 300th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/n2...2GdNqTbts=s660
Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov was a Russian polymath, scientist and writer, who made important contributions to literature, education, and science. Among his discoveries were the atmosphere of Venus and the law of conservation of mass in chemical reactions. His spheres of science were natural science, chemistry, physics, mineralogy, history, art, philology, optical devices and others. Lomonosov was also a poet and influenced the formation of the modern Russian literary language.
The city of Lomonosov, Russia [[former Oranienbaum, Russia from 1710 to 1948), and a lunar crater bear his name, as does a crater on Mars and the asteroid 1379 Lomonosowa. A Russian satellite launched in 2016 was named Mikhailo Lomonosov [[satellite) after him. The Imperial Porcelain Factory, Saint Petersburg was renamed after him from 1925 to 2005. In 1948, the underwater Lomonosov Ridge in the Arctic Ocean was named in his honor.
Moscow's Domodedovo airport is officially named after Lomonosov.
The Lomonosov Gold Medal was established in 1959 and is awarded annually by the Russian Academy of Sciences to a Russian and a foreign scientist.
Lomonosovskaya Station on the Nevsko-Vasileostrovskaya Line of the Saint Petersburg Metro is named after him. It was opened in 1970.
The street "Lomonosova iela" in the Maskavas Forštate district of Riga is named in honor of Lomonosov. During the Soviet era a main street in Tallinn, Estonia, was named in his honor as "Lomonossovi M.", but from 1991 it was renamed Gonsiori after Jakob Johann Gonsior, a 19th-century alderman and lawyer.
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17 Nov 2011
Giò Pomodoro's 81st Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/IC...RhiYf3cAk=s660Giò Pomodoro was an Italian sculptor, printmaker, and stage designer. In 1954 he moved to Milan, where he associated with leading avant-garde artists and started making jewelry. He then began to produce reverse reliefs in clay and also formed assemblages of various materials, including wood, textiles, and plaster subsequently cast in metal.
During the 1960s, he developed several series of sculptures, which explored a range of abstract shapes, usually with smooth undulating surfaces. In his later career, Pomodoro regularly received public commissions and produced a number of large outdoor structures.
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11 Nov 2011
Magusto 2011
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Sv...Yu3z1pFH6=s660
"Magusto" is a Portuguese tradition celebrated by all generations: from grandparents, to moms and dads, and little children. On this day, people come together to eat chestnuts, drink new wine and mingle with friends and family. The event tends to happen around a bonfire, with the younger generation energetically jumping over it [[editor's note: kids, don't try this at home, but if you must, ask your parents first)!
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8 Nov 2011
Edmond Halley's 355th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/iR...trJBBc0ho=s660
Edmond was an English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed in 1720.
From an observatory he constructed on Saint Helena, Halley recorded a transit of Mercury across the Sun. He realized a similar transit of Venus could be used to determine the size of the Solar System. He also used his observations to expand contemporary star maps. He aided in observationally proving Isaac Newton's laws of motion, and funded the publication of Newton's influential Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. From his September 1682 observations, he used the laws of motion to compute the periodicity of Halley's Comet in his 1705 Synopsis of the Astronomy of Comets. It was named after him upon its predicted return in 1758, which he did not live to see.
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7 Nov 2011
Marie Curie's 144th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/5W...hXPhw2vy2=s660
A pioneer in the sciences, Marie Curie's research led to such achievements as the discovery of polonium and radium and the development of the theory of radioactivity. Her life's work earned her two Nobel Prizes and solidified her place in history as an icon in physics and chemistry.
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10 December 2018
Nelly Sachs' 127th Birthday
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Born into a Jewish family in Berlin on this day in 1891, Nelly Sachs studied dance and literature as a child and began writing as an adolescent. She published her poetry in German periodicals as well as a collection of stories called Legends and Tales. During this time, she corresponded with distinguished Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf—who became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1909—and who eventually saved Sachs’ and her mother’s lives. Lagerlöf petitioned the Swedish royal family to help the Sachs escape Germany at the start of World War II.
After escaping to Sweden, Sachs supported herself and her mom in a one-room apartment by working as a translator. During this time, she wrote powerful poems and plays about the aftermath of the war and family members who died in concentration camps. Her haunting poem “O die Schornsteine" [["O the Chimneys"), evokes the spirits of the dearly departed through the image of smoke rising from the camps. Sachs described the “metaphors” in her poetry as “wounds,” but her work also explores themes of transformation and forgiveness. She expanded on these ideas in her 1951 play Eli: Ein Mysterienspiel vom Leiden Israels [[Eli: A Mystery Play of the Sufferings of Israel).
The first German-speaking woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, Sachs’ poignant poetry spoke eloquently about the Holocaust. Sachs won many other accolades including the 1965 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. “In spite of all the horrors of the past,” she said when accepting the award. “I believe in you.”
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3 Nov 2011
Oodgeroo Noonuccal's 91st Birthday
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Oodgeroo Noonuccal was an Aboriginal Australian political activist, artist and educator, who campaigned for Aboriginal rights. Noonuccal was best known for her poetry, and was the first Aboriginal Australian to publish a book of verse.
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21 Oct 2011
Mary Blair's 100th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/RV...1uIR377Aw=s660
Mary Blair was an American artist, animator, and designer. She was prominent in producing art and animation for The Walt Disney Company, drawing concept art for such films as Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Song of the South and Cinderella. Blair also created character designs for enduring attractions such as Disneyland's It's a Small World, the fiesta scene in El Rio del Tiempo in the Mexico pavilion in Epcot's World Showcase, and an enormous mosaic inside Disney's Contemporary Resort. Several of her illustrated children's books from the 1950s remain in print, such as I Can Fly by Ruth Krauss. Blair was inducted into the group of Disney Legends in 1991.
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12 Oct 2011
Art Clokey's 90th Birthday
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https://www.google.com/doodles/art-c...-90th-birthday [[animated)
Art Clokey, creator of The Gumby Show, led an incredibly fascinating life. A pioneer of animation, he worked with clay to create dynamic stop-motion sequences that were entertaining as well as beautiful. His first student film, Gumbasia [[1955), was highly abstract, but contained hints of the playful transformations prevalent in his later work.
His innovation and his palpable love for animation soon led to the creation of The Gumby Show, starring the characters that feature in our doodle. From left to right we have: the Blockheads, Prickle, Goo, Gumby, and Pokey. Together they went on many misadventures, learned valuable lessons, and delighted their audience.
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16 Sept 2011
Albert Szent-Gyorgyi's 118th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Jd...fREuufNHw=s660
Albert Szent-Györgyi was a Hungarian biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1937. He is credited with first isolating vitamin C and discovering the components and reactions of the citric acid cycle.
To say thanks to the scientist responsible for discovering Vitamin-C, I thought it’d be fun to not only rebrand our logo with a few replaced or redrawn letters, but to rebrand Google the Company, right down to our core product, so to speak. In this case, Google became the distributor of all foods and herbs rich in Vitamin-C content!
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24 Jul 2011
100th Anniversary of the rediscovery of Machu Picchu
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/82...q_fqdJPUg=s660
Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca citadel, located in the Eastern Cordillera of southern Peru, on a 2,430-metre [[7,970 ft) mountain ridge, It is located in the Machupicchu District within Urubamba Province above the Sacred Valley, which is 80 kilometres [[50 mi) northwest of Cuzco. The Urubamba River flows past it, cutting through the Cordillera and creating a canyon with a tropical mountain climate.
Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was constructed as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti [[1438–1472). Often mistakenly referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas", it is the most familiar icon of Inca civilization. The Incas built the estate around 1450 but abandoned it a century later at the time of the Spanish conquest. Although known locally, it was not known to the Spanish during the colonial period and remained unknown to the outside world until American historian Hiram Bingham brought it to international attention in 1911.
Machu Picchu was declared a Peruvian Historic Sanctuary in 1981 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. In 2007, Machu Picchu was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in a worldwide internet poll.
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23 Jul 2011
Amália Rodrigues' 91st Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Rc...BEw8b3e7A=s660
Amália da Piedade Rebordão Rodrigues GCSE, GCIH or popularly as Amália, was a Portuguese fadista [[fado singer) and actress.
Known as the 'Rainha do Fado' [["Queen of Fado"), Rodrigues was instrumental in popularising fado worldwide and travelled internationally throughout her career. Amália remains the best-selling Portuguese artist in history.
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22 Jul 2011
Alexander Calder's 113th Birthday
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https://www.google.com/doodles/alexa...113th-birthday
Our homepage doodle today celebrates the birthday of Alexander Calder, an American artist best known for inventing the mobile.
Last year I wandered into a white room at Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago full of Alexander Calder’s delicate “objects,” all beautifully balanced and proportioned, moving gently in the air currents like a whimsical metal forest. Calder took ordinary materials at hand—wire, scraps of sheet metal—and made them into brilliant forms, letting space and motion do the rest. As an engineer, I work with abstractions, too, so this really struck me.
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19 Jul 2011
Xu Beihong's 116th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Cg...P6DdNGBGQ=s660
Xu Beihong was a Chinese painter.
He was primarily known for his Chinese ink paintings of horses and birds and was one of the first Chinese artists to articulate the need for artistic expressions that reflected a modern China at the beginning of the 20th century. He was also regarded as one of the first to create monumental oil paintings with epic Chinese themes – a show of his high proficiency in an essential Western art technique. He was one of the four pioneers of Chinese modern art who earned the title of "The Four Great Academy Presidents".
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8 Jul 2011
Jean de la Fontaine's 390th Birthday
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Jean de La Fontaine was a French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, as well as in French regional languages.
After a long period of royal suspicion, he was admitted to the French Academy and his reputation in France has never faded since. Evidence of this is found in the many pictures and statues of the writer, later depictions on medals, coins and postage stamps.
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1 Jul 2011
Dorothea MacKellar's 126th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/2M...UzyEBdv3i=s660
As a poet, Dorothea MacKellar is best known for her vivid and loving descriptions of the Australian landscape. As such, I did my best to capture the brightness of her words, but also keep the doodle a little bit “sketchy” to portray the brevity of her verses.
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24 Apr 2010
Hubble Space Telescope's 20th Anniversary
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/uN...YuZMZMugA=s660
The Hubble Space Telescope [[often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versatile, renowned both as a vital research tool and as a public relations boon for astronomy. The Hubble telescope is named after astronomer Edwin Hubble and is one of NASA's Great Observatories, along with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope.
Hubble is the only telescope designed to be maintained in space by astronauts. Five Space Shuttle missions have repaired, upgraded, and replaced systems on the telescope, including all five of the main instruments.
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17 Dec 2009
Discovery of the Aztec Sun Stone
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/o6...IJQx3Rjle=s660
The Aztec sun stone [[Spanish: Piedra del Sol) is a late post-classic Mexica sculpture housed in the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City, and is perhaps the most famous work of Mexica sculpture. It measures 358 centimetres [[141 in) in diameter and 98 centimetres [[39 in) thick, and weighs 24,590 kg [[54,210 lb). Shortly after the Spanish conquest, the monolithic sculpture was buried in the Zócalo, the main square of Mexico City. It was rediscovered on 17 December 1790 during repairs on the Mexico City Cathedral. Following its rediscovery, the sun stone was mounted on an exterior wall of the cathedral, where it remained until 1885. Early scholars initially thought that the stone was carved in the 1470s, though modern research suggests that it was carved some time between 1502 and 1521.
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7 Oct 2009
Invention of the Bar Code
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/EA...7xJZ5WqUT=s660
A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths and spacings of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or one-dimensional [[1D), can be scanned by special optical scanners, called barcode readers, of which there are several types. Later, two-dimensional [[2D) variants were developed, using rectangles, dots, hexagons and other patterns, called matrix codes or 2D barcodes, although they do not use bars as such. 2D barcodes can be read using purpose-built 2D optical scanners, which exist in a few different forms. 2D barcodes can also be read by a digital camera connected to a microcomputer running software that takes a photographic image of the barcode and analyzes the image to deconstruct and decode the 2D barcode. A mobile device with an inbuilt camera, such as smartphone, can function as the latter type of 2D barcode reader using specialized application software. [[The same sort of mobile device could also read 1D barcodes, depending on the application software.)
The barcode was invented by Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver and patented in the US in 1951. The invention was based on Morse code that was extended to thin and thick bars. However, it took over twenty years before this invention became commercially successful. An early use of one type of barcode in an industrial context was sponsored by the Association of American Railroads in the late 1960s.
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19 July 2019
50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/la...dVnlhgeS0oy2dJ
https://www.google.com/doodles/50th-...e-moon-landing [[interactive)
Fifty years ago, NASA’s Apollo 11 mission changed our world and ideas of what is possible by successfully landing humans on the surface of the moon—and bringing them home safely—for the first time in history. Today’s video Doodle celebrates this moment of human achievement by taking us through the journey to the moon and back, narrated by someone with firsthand knowledge of the epic event: former astronaut and Apollo 11 command module pilot Michael Collins.
A team of some 400,000 people from around the world worked on Project Apollo—mostly factory workers, scientists, and engineers who never left the ground. Within those 400,000 were the mission’s astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins. Their historic journey began when a Saturn V rocket blasted off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969. After achieving orbit around the moon, the lunar module, known as “the Eagle,” separated for a 13-minute journey to the surface. Meanwhile, astronaut Michael Collins stayed behind in the command module, which would eventually bring all three astronauts back home to Earth.
Along the way to the moon’s surface, Armstrong and Aldrin lost radio contact with Earth, the onboard computer showed unfamiliar error codes, and fuel ran short. As millions watched on television with anxious anticipation, they successfully steered the module to a safe landing on the crater dubbed the “Sea of Tranquility” on July 20, 1969.
Not long after, Armstrong became the first human to step foot on the moon, stating the now infamous words “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Returning safely to Earth on July 25, 1969, the Apollo 11 crew were followed by 10 more astronauts, with the final mission taking place in 1972. Countless scientific breakthroughs—from CAT scans to freeze-dried food—took place thanks to the mission to the moon.
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12 Jun 2019
Margaret Ogola's 60th Birthday
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Born on this day in 1958, Kenyan author, pediatrician, and human rights advocate Margaret Ogola graduated from the University of Nairobi, oversaw over 400 health centers in Kenya, worked with HIV-positive orphans, and also wrote the award-winning novel, The River and The Source.
Her literary debut focuses on the lives of several generations of Kenyan women, starting in a rural 19th-century village and tracing the descendants of a matriarch named Akoko all the way to modern-day Nairobi. Along the way, the novel addresses political and cultural changes as well as the AIDS crisis, always highlighting the role of women in African society. After being rejected by various publishers, Ogola’s novel went on to win the 1995 Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature and the 1995 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book.
“The inspiration for this book came from my mother,” said Dr. Ogola, “who handed down to me the wisdom and lives of her own mother and grandmother.” Highlighting the courage of African women in their everyday lives, Dr. Ogola’s book became required reading for many Kenyan secondary school students.
In addition to writing two other novels, a biography, and a book on parenting, Dr. Ogola practiced at Kenyatta National Hospital and served as Medical Director of Cottolengo Hospice for HIV and Aids orphans. She was also the country coordinator of the Hope for Africa Children Initiative, a partnership of NGOs including World Vision, CARE, Society for Women and AIDS, and Save the Children. In 1999, Dr. Ogola was honored with the Familias Award for Humanitarian Service of the World Congress of Families in Geneva, Switzerland.
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11 January 2019
Evelyn Dove’s 117th Birthday
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Today’s Doodle celebrates the life and legacy of British star Evelyn Dove, a classically trained singer, pianist, and actress known for her powerful vocals and glamorous image. Dove became the first black singer on BBC Radio, opening doors for women of color in the entertainment industry.
Born in London on this day in 1902, Dove was the daughter of Francis Dove, a successful attorney and businessman from Sierra Leone and his English wife Augusta. Drawn to the performing arts, Evelyn studied voice, piano, and elocution at the Royal Academy of Music, graduating with a silver medal in 1919. Despite her outstanding contralto voice, she found it difficult to break into the classical music scene as a woman of mixed race, so she performed at cabaret and jazz shows all over London. She also became a member of the Southern Syncopated Orchestra, an ensemble featuring West Indian and African musicians that were invited to perform at Buckingham Palace.
Through the mid-1920s, Dove sang with Black jazz revues like the Chocolate Kiddies, gaining worldwide exposure. She performed in around the globe from Russia to Harlem and Bombay, and even replaced Josephine Baker at the Casino de Paris.
Starting in 1939, Dove recorded BBC radio’s Serenade in Sepia along with Trinidadian folk singer Edric Connor. The series went on for a decade, eventually becoming a popular TV show. She later starred in a 1958 West End production of Langston Hughes's Simply Heavenly.
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13 Dec 2018
The Geminid Meteor Shower 2018
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/RH...1NH5yXnL9XqZy8
https://www.google.com/doodles/the-g...or-shower-2018 [[interactive)
Named after the ancient Greek god Apollo’s son, 3200 Phaethon is an asteroid whose orbit brings it closer to our sun than Mercury. First discovered via satellite data 35 years ago, Phaethon is responsible for bringing the spectacular Geminid meteor showers to Earth’s atmosphere each December. With each passing year since the mid-1800s, the proliferation of yellowish streaks of light in the night-time sky have grown more intense.
The so-called “rock comet” came within 6.4 million miles of earth this past December, although last year’s supermoon made it harder to appreciate the celestial light show. That won’t be a factor this year.
If the weather is clear, 2018 should be the best year ever to watch the Gemenides—so named because they seem to originate from the constellation Gemini. No need for a telescope or binoculars: fragments from Phaethon’s debris trail should become visible after 9 pm on December 13, peaking after midnight with as many as 120 meteors per hour. The cosmic d ust may have resulted from a crash with another flying object, but there’s little danger of any Geminids landing on earth as it normally disintegrates in the earth’s atmosphere.
Today’s slideshow Doodle follows the Geminids’ path through Earth’s atmosphere as it lights up the sky. As Phaethon’s orbit leads it near the sun, the extreme heat causes it to fracture and leaves a trail of debris in its orbital path. Every December, Earth’s orbit leads us through the trail of 3200 Phaethon and its debris crashes into our atmosphere at 79,000 miles [[127,000 km) per hour. Once through the Earth’s atmosphere, the Geminids’ radiant [[or where it appears to originate) is the constellation Gemini—from which the meteor shower gets its name.
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9 Dec 2018
Sir Douglas Nicholls’ 112th Birthday
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Today’s Doodle celebrates Sir Douglas Nicholls, the athlete, pastor, and political leader who championed the upliftment of Australia’s Indigenous people and went on to become the first Aboriginal Australian to be knighted by the Queen of England.
Born in Yorta Yorta Country, New South Wales, on this day in 1906, Nicholls was raised in Cummeragunga Mission Station, an Aboriginal reserve on the Murray River. After receiving a basic education he worked as a “tar boy,” preparing sheep for shearing, and later joined a dredging team building levees on the river.
Although he stood just 5’2” Nicholls was a gifted athlete who won various sprinting titles, was an expert boomerang thrower, and who excelled in football. As the first Indigenous Australian to play football professionally, Nicholls endured scorn from teammates and trainers, but eventually found his team and helped the Northcote club reach the grand finals for three seasons—winning the title in 1929.
Motivated by the founder of the Australian Aborigines’ League, Sir Nicholls got involved in politics and began speaking out for the rights of Indigenous people. “I know we can proudly hold our own with others if given the chance,” Nicholls proclaimed in 1938 at Australia’s first gathering to advance the cause of Aboriginal civil rights.
In 1940, Nicholls retired as a football player due to knee injuries. Drawn to the church after the loss of his mother, he became the first pastor of Aboriginal Church of Christ in Australia. “Pastor Doug” held regular meetings that led to a thriving community center. He was appointed to a parliamentary committee which investigated abuses towards Indigenous people and edited Smoke Signals, the journal of the Aboriginal Advancement League.
In 1976 Nicholls was appointed governor of South Australia, becoming the first Indigenous Australian to hold the office. Nicholls was named a Member of the British Empire, Victorian Father of the Year, Order of the British Empire, and in 1972 traveled to London to be knighted by the Queen of England.
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18 Nov 2016
James Welch's 76th Birthday
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Today’s Doodle by artist Sophie Diao pays tribute to James Welch, the Blackfeet writer, on what would be his 76th birthday. Through his novels, documentary film, and poems, Welch gave voice to the struggles and humanity of the Native American experience in the United States.
Thirty years ago, Welch published his best known work, Fools Crow, the story of the Blackfeet people during the period of post-civil war encroachment by Europeans. In this award-winning novel, the Blackfeet seek to continue traditional ways, and to avoid both contact and conflict. As a whole, Welch’s works emphasized the humanity of native peoples and their deep attachment to their homelands. He was considered an early part of what was later dubbed the Native American Renaissance, during which native writers celebrated tribal culture and revealed its complex problems in works readily accessible to the larger American public.
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15 Aug 2020
India Independence Day 2020
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Today’s Doodle, illustrated by Mumbai-based guest artist Sachin Ghanekar, commemorates the Independence Day of the world’s largest democracy: India. On this day in 1947, India became a sovereign, independent nation after nearly a century of British rule.
Featured in the Doodle artwork are several iconic Indian folk instruments, including the tutari, shehnai, dhol, veena, sarangi and bansuri. From the versatile double-reeded shehnai to the resonant stringed sarangi, these instruments are but a few that make up India’s rich musical legacy, which dates back over 6,000 years.
The musical diversity represented by this unique collection reflects the patchwork of Indian cultures that is celebrated across the nation today.
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28 Jul 2020
Peru National Day 2020
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Today’s Doodle celebrates Peru’s Independence Day and the country’s Fiestas Patrias, or National Holidays. On July 28, 1821, Peru officially declared its independence from Spain.
Illustrated in the Doodle artwork is Peru’s national animal, the vicuña, which also stands proudly on the nation’s flag and coat of arms. A close relative of the llama and alpaca, the vicuña can be found roaming free in the elevated grasslands of Peru’s central Andes. The animal is revered for its lustrous, soft, and durable outer coat, a fiber so desirable that during the rule of Peru’s Inca empire, it was reserved exclusively for nobility.
Vicuñas were hunted nearly to extinction, but these graceful animals have since bounced back to healthy numbers. This rare resilience reinforces the vicuña as a symbol of Peruvian independence, patriotism, and fortitude.
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20 Jul 2020
Celebrating Dilhan Eryurt
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Today’s Doodle celebrates a star in the field of astronomy, Turkish astrophysicist Dr. Dilhan Eryurt. She was the first Turkish woman to work as a scientist at NASA, and her research on the evolution of stars led to an unexpected discovery about the history of the solar system. On this day in 1969, Dr. Eryurt was honored with NASA’s prestigious “Apollo Achievement Award” for her contribution to the moon landing that year.
Dilhan Eryurt was born in İzmir, Turkey, on November 29, 1926. After high school, she studied in the Department of Mathematics and Astronomy at Istanbul University, and then earned a PhD in Astrophysics from Ankara University in 1953. In 1961, Dr. Eryurt began work as the only woman at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in New York.
At the time, the leading scientific model suggested that the sun had been heating up over billions of years to reach its current temperature. Dr. Eryurt’s work helped show that in fact the sun used to be even hotter than it is today. This transformative discovery had huge implications for the chemical makeup of the Earth, as well as the conditions astronauts could expect to find on the Moon.
After Dr. Eryurt returned to Turkey, she established an astrophysics department at the Middle East Technical University, where she went on to become the dean of the faculty. In 1977, she was honored with Turkey’s TÜBİTAK Science Award.
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9 Jul 2020
Argentina Independence Day 2020
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In recognition of 204 years of Argentinian sovereignty, today’s Doodle celebrates Argentina’s Independence Day, also known as Nueve de Julio [[Ninth of July). On this day in 1816, provincial leaders gathered at a home in the northern city of San Miguel de Tucumán to officially declare the nation’s independence from Spain.
Depicted in the Doodle artwork is Argentina’s national flower, the bloom of the indigenous cockspur coral tree known in Spanish as the ceibo. The ceibo’s distinctive flowers are hard to miss, consisting of bright carmine-red petals that bloom in groups of five.
The small trees are found primarily in Argentina’s central and northern regions, from the banks of Iguazu Falls down to the urban parks of the capital of Buenos Aires. The ceibo has long been held as a symbol of the country’s cultural identity and memorialized in folklore, song, and poetry. The indigenous species was declared the national flower of Argentina in 1942, and its fiery red is represented among the many colors of the Argentine coat of arms.
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2 August 2018
Celebrating Mount Olympus
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According to ancient Greek mythology, Mount Olympus is the home of the gods. Should mere mortals dare to climb so high? On this day In 1913, three courageous climbers answered “yes,” scaling this 9,573-foot summit sculpted with deep ravines and abrupt upgrades. Swiss photographer Frédéric Boissonnas, his friend Daniel Baud-Bovy, and Christos Kakkalos, a Greek hunter who served as their guide, set off in treacherous weather.
Kakkalos knew the mountain so well that he scaled its sharp inclines barefoot. The Swiss had some experience in mountaineering, but Boissonnas had to lug heavy photographic equipment up the mountain. He and his friend, Baud-Bovy, were tied together with a rope, standard procedure for such expeditions.
During their climb, the summit where Greek gods were said to reside was wreathed with storm clouds, and the climbers mistook a lesser peak for the home of the gods. Thinking their ascent was done, the elated adventurers wrote cards describing their feat and put the notes in a bottle that they buried on a crest they christened Victory Top. When the mist cleared, they spied another, more impressive peak, called Mytikas.
With Kakkalos in the lead, the men continued upward, scrambling across the slippery gorge. Boissonnas later wrote that he was compelled by the fire of Prometheus, who stole fire from Athena and Hephaestus’ workshop on Mount Olympus, gifting it to humans to help them in their labors.
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1 March 2020
St. David's Day 2020
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Today’s Doodle pays homage to the annual commemoration of cultural heritage in Wales, St. David’s Day. Every year the country comes together in honor of their patron saint to celebrate Welsh history, culture, and identity.
Recognized since the 18th century, St. David’s Day is a time for the Welsh to show their national pride. Many may wear pins of leeks, daffodils, or both as historical emblems of Wales, which have come to be associated with the day. The leek is said to have been worn by medieval Welsh warriors to differentiate themselves from their enemies, and the daffodil coincides with the holiday’s arrival as winter gives way to spring.
From Wales’ largest city, Cardiff, to its smallest, St. Davids, locals hold parades and concerts. Schools host Eisteddfodau, a traditional festival of poetry and music, and children often dress up in 18th and 19th century-inspired clothing or even dress as the Welsh flag’s red dragon.
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Apr 14, 2013
Alfredo Volpi's 117th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/af...XC7zbI7dX=s660
Volpi was a self-taught painter, producing his first naturalist painting in 1914 at the age of twelve.Although his first paintings could resemble, in some way, those of expressionist artists, [[an early influence was the Brazilian landscape painter Ernesto de Fiori). Mogi das Cruzes, a landscape painted for a patron in 1939, is a representative work of this period. He soon focused into a most peculiar style, using geometric abstract forms and switching from oil paint to tempera. Volpi's first one-man exhibition was held at the Itá Gallery in São Paulo in 1944.
Volpi started painting façades of houses in a highly stylized and colorful manner [[these paintings were later named the "historical façades" by art critics) and this recurrent theme became pervasive all through the 1950s, after a brief "concretist" period [[even though the artist himself never acknowledged being part of the concretist movement as such). The 1960s witnessed the development of his trademark "bandeirinhas" [[small flags) for which Volpi became famous and which originated from Brazilian folklore [[small flags are a regular fixture of the popular festa junina, held every year during the month of June): the artist would use the small-flag pattern to show an increasing sense of color combination and balanced composition which would eventually place him among the major Brazilian artists of his time.
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Apr 7, 2013
500th Anniversary of the Piri Reis Map
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/9t...iILFJZP8A=s660
The Piri Reis map is a world map compiled in 1513 by the Ottoman admiral and cartographer Piri Reis. Approximately one third of the map survives; it shows the western coasts of Europe and North Africa and the coast of Brazil with reasonable accuracy. Various Atlantic islands, including the Azores and Canary Islands, are depicted, as is the mythical island of Antillia and possibly Japan.
The map's historical importance lies in its demonstration of the extent of exploration of the New World by approximately 1510, and in its claim to have used a map made by Christopher Columbus, otherwise lost, as a source. Piri also stated that he had used ten Arab sources and four Indian maps sourced from the Portuguese. More recently, the map has been the focus of claims for the pre-modern exploration of the Antarctic coast.
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Apr 5, 2013
Arbor Day 2013
https://soulfuldetroit.com/image/png...AAAElFTkSuQmCChttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/fZ...MWRsQTu9IIreU5
http://www.google.com/doodles/arbor-day-2013
Arbor Day is a secular day of observance in which individuals and groups are encouraged to plant trees.Today, many countries observe such a holiday. Though usually observed in the spring, the date varies, depending on climate and suitable planting season.
The Spanish village of Mondoñedo held the first documented arbor plantation festival in the world organized by its mayor in 1594. The place remains as Alameda de los Remedios and it is still planted with lime and horse-chestnut trees. A humble granite marker and a bronze plate recall the event. Additionally, the small Spanish village of Villanueva de la Sierra held the first modern Arbor Day, an initiative launched in 1805 by the local priest with the enthusiastic support of the entire population.
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Apr 2, 2013
Maria Sibylla Merian's 366th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/3V...l0ch8rvjc=s660
The most striking thing about Maria Sybilla Merian was her ability to do two things at once. Firstly, her illustrations boasted impeccable observational and scientific clarity; it's fairly obvious that the entomologist neglected all short-cuts in the rendering of chitinous exoskeletons and dramatic stages in metamorphosis of her subjects. Secondly, Merian's drawings accomplished this with such a flow of line work, crystalline color, and balanced composition as to be sublimely inviting to the viewer. [[This is especially remarkable when observing her renditions of specimens that might be, shall we say, less than personable if approached in the wild)
While Merian was most known for her depictions of insects, she did cover a range of species across various animal kingdoms. I was inspired by particular painting involving a young iguana, whose curl of the tail coincided nicely with the shape of a lower-case 'g'. I hastened to sketch out a concept based on this notion.
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Mar 21, 2013
Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro's 167th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Ax...5nY6jd7Od=s660
Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro was a Portuguese artist known for his illustration, caricatures, sculpture, and ceramics designs. Bordalo Pinheiro created the popular cartoon character Zé Povinho [[1875) and is considered the first Portuguese comics creator.
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September 28, 2020
Celebrating Cải Lương
https://www.google.com/logos/doodles...7108711-2x.png
Tuồng cải lương [[ roughly "reformed theater") is a form of modern folk opera in Vietnam. It blends southern Vietnamese folk songs, classical music, hát tuồng [[a classical theater form based on Chinese opera), and modern spoken drama.
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Sep 27, 2020
Google’s 22nd Birthday
https://www.google.com/logos/doodles...108550-2xa.gif
The partnership between Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin traces its roots to the sunny campus of Stanford University. As graduate students, the pair set out to improve the way people interacted with the wealth of information on the World Wide Web. In 1998, Google was born, and the rest is history.