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13 May 2016
Daeng Soetigna's 108th Birthday
https://www.google.com/logos/doodles...56128-hp2x.jpg
Music can instantly transport a listener to a unique place and time. The melodic sounds of the angklung are no exception.
One rap of the hand on this Indonesian bamboo instrument, and we’re transported to the tranquil islands of Southeast Asia. For this, we can thank Daeng Soetigna, whose novel seven-note diatonic angklung brought the tones of Indonesia to an international audience. While the oldest known angklung dates back to the 17th century, it was Soetigna’s modifications in 1938 that lifted it out of obscurity and into orchestras, concerts, and classrooms around the world.
We celebrate Soetigna’s ingenuity, and contribution to modern musical education with this bamboo-themed doodle by Lydia Nichols.
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12 May 2016
Yom Ha'atzmaut 2016
https://www.google.com/logos/doodles...06240-hp2x.jpg
Today is Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s annual celebration of independence. Since the country’s founding in 1948, this day has served as a time for unity and celebration.
Across Israel today, people will be marking the holiday with a barbecue or al ha'esh, which means “on the fire.” It’s said that there are so many barbecues on Yom Ha’atzmaut that people have them in parks, beaches, even traffic circles -- as you see reflected in today’s Doodle.
To all those celebrating: may your barbecues be delicious, wherever they happen to take place.
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11 May 2021
Go Tik Swan's 90th birthday
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Today’s Doodle celebrates Indonesian artist Go Tik Swan, a contemporary master of the ancient art form of designing fabric with hot wax known as batik.
Go Tik Swan was born on this day in 1931 in Solo, Central Java, Indonesia. He came of age frequenting his grandfather’s batik workshops, where he absorbed Javanese cultural knowledge from local craftspeople. Fascinated by his ancestry, Swan further explored his heritage by studying Javanese literature and dance at the University of Indonesia.
It was during one of his college dance performances that Indonesia’s president caught wind of Swan’s family background in batik manufacturing and commissioned him to create a new batik style; one that he believed could transcend division and unite the Indonesian people. In the 1950s, Swan fulfilled the president’s request by combining regional batik techniques to introduce “Batik Indonesia.”
Swan held such high reverence for his craft that he considered each piece of batik to carry philosophical meaning, even developing a motif in the 70s entitled Kembang Bangah [“Rotten Flowers''] as a love letter to his national identity. An expert in Javanese culture, he was also a master of kris [an ancient Javanese ceremonial dagger tradition] and a skilled player of gamelan [a popular orchestral form of traditional Indonesian music]. He gave back so much to his heritage, the Surakarta government honored him with the noble title of Panembahan Hardjonegoro.
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11 May 2020
Celebrating Tomris Uyar
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Today’s Doodle, illustrated by Istanbul-based guest artist Merve Atılgan, celebrates the prolific Turkish short story writer and translator Tomris Uyar. A leading figure in 1970s Turkish literature, Uyar was known for her realist style that often focused on the authentic depiction of female characters and family dynamics. On this day in 1980 and 1987, Uyar was honored with one of Turkish literature's most esteemed awards for short stories, the Sait Faik Story Award.
Born in Istanbul on March 15, 1941, Uyar grew up attending American schools, and her access to English-language short fiction and Turkey’s contemporary literature served as a strong inspiration for the future writer.
Beginning her career as a translator, Uyar continued in the craft for the rest of her life, tackling avant-garde English fiction, and in the process developing a rare mastery of the intricacies of the Turkish language.
As a writer, she devoted herself to short fiction with a bit of support from her cats. Whenever one entered the room, she credited the felines for stimulating her writing process. These “inspiration cats,” referenced in the Doodle artwork, helped her to publish over 900 pages across 11 volumes of her stories throughout her career.
Amongst her greatest influences was Turkish writer Sait Faik, known for narrating evocative human stories unconstrained by form or plot. Drawing from influences like Faik, Uyar’s work pushed the boundaries of the form, employing postmodern techniques in the exploration of the lives of ordinary people, particularly from a female perspective. Over the years, her writing progressed to a caliber that positioned her to receive the aforementioned Sait Faik Story Award twice, a prize created in honor of the writer that had such a profound impact on Uyar and her narratives.
In current times, Uyar’s writing has been published in over 60 languages and is enjoyed by readers around the world to this day.
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12 May 2017
Por Intalapalit’s 107th birthday
https://www.google.com/logos/doodles...4198016-2x.png
Tireless Thai writer Por Intalapalit was born on this date in 1910. Famous for Sam Kler [or SamGler], a novel series that spanned more than 1,000 books, Intalapalit was nothing short of prolific.
Popular in the 1960s and 1970s, Sam Kler ["The Three Buddies"] revolved around the comic adventures and antics of three main characters: Pol, Nikorn, and Kim-nguan [with the later addition of the scientist Dr. Direk]. Together the pals sparred in boxing matches, trekked through jungles, wrangled with monsters, and encountered UFOs. Several of the stories were also developed into well-known TV shows and movies, including Sam Kler Jer Long Hon, a Cold War-themed film starring legendary Thai actor Mitr Chaibancha.
Today's Doodle was inspired by Por Intalapalit’s beloved characters and colorful, mod-era book covers.
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12 May 2012
Edward Lear's 200th Birthday
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Edward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, now known mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limericks, a form he popularised. His principal areas of work as an artist were threefold: as a draughtsman employed to make illustrations of birds and animals; making coloured drawings during his journeys, which he reworked later, sometimes as plates for his travel books; and as a [minor] illustrator of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poems. As an author, he is known principally for his popular nonsense collections of poems, songs, short stories, botanical drawings, recipes and alphabets. He also composed and published twelve musical settings of Tennyson's poetry in poem.
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12 May 2014
Dorothy Hodgkin's 104th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/vA...Rpqk-mZzw=s660
Today marks the 104th Birthday of Dorothy Hodgkin, a pioneer of the field of X-ray crystallography. A 100 year old technique in chemistry which has revolutionized the way we understand the structure of the universe on a molecular level. By studying the patterns produced by X-rays, scientists are able to surmise the molecular structure of materials. A technique so important that it has had a direct role in producing multiple Nobel Laureates including Dorothy Hodgkin, who was awarded one in 1964 for her work on uncovering the complex structure of Penicillin G [the model in the doodle].
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9 May 2014
Sophie Scholl's 93rd Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ir...3u8rWVdV-=s660
Sophia Magdalena Scholl was a German student and anti-Nazi political activist, active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany.
She was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich [LMU] with her brother, Hans. As a result, she was executed by guillotine. Since the 1970s, Scholl has been extensively commemorated for her anti-Nazi resistance work.
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7 May 2014
Olympe de Gouges's 266th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Yn...ZyUmM_xrA=s660
Olympe de Gouges was a French playwright and political activist whose writings on women's rights and abolitionism reached a large audience in various countries.
She began her career as a playwright in the early 1780s. As political tension rose in France, Olympe de Gouges became increasingly politically engaged. She became an outspoken advocate against the slave trade in the French colonies in 1788. At the same time, she began writing political pamphlets.
Today she is perhaps best known as an early women's rights advocate who demanded that French women be given the same rights as French men. In her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen [1791], she challenged the practice of male authority and the notion of male-female inequality.
She was executed by guillotine during the Reign of Terror [1793–1794] for attacking the regime of the Revolutionary government and for her association with the Girondists.
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5 May 2019
Stanislaw Moniuszko’s 200th Birthday
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Today’s Doodle by Warsaw-based illustrator Gosia Herba honors Stanisław Moniuszko, the Polish musician, composer, conductor, and teacher. Born on May 5, 1819, Moniuszko went on to become director of the Warsaw Opera House where he premiered many of his own works, including one of the most beloved operas in Polish history.
After being taught music by his mother as a child, Moniuszko was sent to study harmony, counterpoint, instrumentation, and conducting with the director of the Singakademie Music Society. There, he decided to become a composer, with a special interest in the human voice.
While working as an organist in Wilno, Moniuszko began writing his songbook, Śpiewnik Domowy [Home Songbook], publishing the first of 12 volumes in 1843. During a trip to Warsaw, he met the poet Włodzimierz Wolski, who’d written a libretto for an opera named Halka, based on a Polish folk story.
Moniuszko composed the music, drawing inspiration from traditional Polish dance music known as polonaises and mazurkas. Halka premiered in Wilno in 1848 and later traveled to Prague, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. Expanded to four acts in 1858, the opera was hailed as a Polish cultural treasure, making Moniuszko a national hero.
A statue of Moniuszko stands outside Warsaw’s Opera House to this day, and his legacy lives on in The Stanislaw Moniuszko Music Academy in Gdansk. An international vocal competition in his name also takes place every three years. In it, finalists compete for a chance to sing with Poland’s National Opera on the stage where Moniuszko’s legend began.
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5 May 2010
Rocket Festival
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/gJ...1U2DPjBtq=s660
A Rocket Festival is a merit-making ceremony traditionally practiced by ethnic Lao people throughout much of Isan and Laos, in numerous villages and municipalities near the beginning of the wet season.
Celebrations typically include preliminary music and dance performances, competitive processions of floats, dancers and musicians on the second day, and culminating on the third day in competitive firings of home-made rockets. Local participants and sponsors use the occasion to enhance their social prestige, as is customary in traditional Buddhist folk festivals throughout Southeast Asia.
Festival period: April - June [various local area]. The Festival is most famous and widely known and are special programs and specific local patterns like Bung Fai or Parade dance and Beautiful Bung Fai float in Thailand such as Yasothon the second weekend of May, Suwannaphum District, Roi Et the first weekend of June, Phanom Phrai District Roi Et on full moon of the seventh month in Lunar year's calendar each year. The Bung Fai festival is not only found in Isan or Northeasthern Thailand and North Thailand and Laos, but also in Amphoe Sukhirin, Narathiwat.
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5 May 2009
250th Anniversary of Kew Gardens
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/1i...YdB_7tcKw=s660
Kew Gardens is a botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park in Middlesex, England, its living collections includes some of the 27,000 taxa curated by Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, while the herbarium, which is one of the largest in the world, has over 8.5 million preserved plant and fungal specimens.
The library contains more than 750,000 volumes, and the illustrations collection contains more than 175,000 prints and drawings of plants. It is one of London's top tourist attractions and is a World Heritage Site.
Kew Gardens, together with the botanic gardens at Wakehurst in Sussex, are managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, an internationally important botanical research and education institution that employs over 1,100 staff and is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
The Kew site, which has been dated as formally starting in 1759, though it can be traced back to the exotic garden at Kew Park, formed by Henry, Lord Capell of Tewkesbury, consists of 132 hectares [330 acres] of gardens and botanical glasshouses, four Grade I listed buildings, and 36 Grade II listed structures, all set in an internationally significant landscape. It is listed Grade I on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Kew Gardens has its own police force, Kew Constabulary, which has been in operation since 1847.
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6 May 2013
Mihailo Petrović Alas' 145th birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/8y...KNjoMv3r-=s660
Mihailo Petrović Alas was an influential Serbian mathematician and inventor. He was also a distinguished professor at Belgrade University, an academic, fisherman, writer, publicist, musician, businessman, traveler and volunteer in the Balkan Wars, the First and Second World Wars. He was a student of Henri Poincaré, Paul Painlevé, Charles Hermite and Émile Picard. Petrović contributed significantly to the study of differential equations and phenomenology, founded Engineering mathematics in Serbia, and invented one of the first prototypes of a hydraulic analog computer.
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14 January 2020
Kaifi Azmi's 101st Birthday
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Today’s Do odle celebrates Indian poet, songwriter, and social change advocate Kaifi Azmi on his 101st birthday. With work ranging from passionate love poems and activist verses to Bollywood songs lyrics and screenplays, Azmi has become one of the most renowned poets of the 20th century in India, and his humanitarian efforts continue to impact people’s lives today.
Amzi was born Syed Athar Hussain Rizvi on this day in 1919 in the Azmargh district of Uttar Pradesh, India. At age 11, he composed his first poem, a ghazal-style piece. Inspired by Gandhi's 1942 Quit India freedom movement, he later left for Bombay [now Mumbai] to write for an Urdu newspaper. He then published his first collection of poems, Jhankar [1943], as well as became a member of the influential Progressive Writers’ Association that used writing to try to achieve socioeconomic reforms.
Azmi was prolific and won numerous awards for his contributions, including three Filmfare Awards for Garm Hawa [“Scorching Winds,” 1973], the prestigious Padma Shri Award for Literature and Education [1974], and one of India’s highest literary honors, the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship [2002].
In one of his early and most famous poems, “Aurat,” Amzi advocated for women’s equality, one of the causes he championed in his lifetime. He also founded the NGO Mijwan Welfare Society [MWS] to support various educational initiatives to improve the lives of rural women and families, and to this day, MWS continues its work in the spirit of its founder.
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14 January 2010
Celebration of Chinese Culture
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Wc...VJx-XfaTA=s660
Chinese culture is one of the world's oldest cultures, originating thousands of years ago. The culture prevails across a large geographical region in East Asia and is extremely diverse and varying, with customs and traditions varying greatly between provinces, cities, and even towns as well. The terms 'China' and the geographical landmass of 'China' has shifted across the centuries, with the last name being the Great Qing before the name 'China' became commonplace in modernity.
Chinese civilization is historically considered a dominant culture of East Asia. With China being one of the earliest ancient civilizations, Chinese culture exerts profound influence on the philosophy, virtue, etiquette, and traditions of Asia. Chinese language, ceramics, architecture, music, dance, literature, martial arts, cuisine, visual arts, philosophy, business etiquette, religion, politics, and history have global influence, while its traditions and festivals are also celebrated, instilled, and practiced by people around the world.
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11 Jan 2010
Coming of Age Day 2010
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/lv...RHeNGrHAO=s660
Seijin Shiki could be translated as 'Coming of Age Day Ceremony' in English. Seijin-no-hi [Coming of Age Day] is a Japanese national holiday that occurs on every second Monday of January.
Coming of Age Day or Adult's Day honors every person that has turned 20 years old over the past year. When young people reach twenty they officially become adults in Japanese society and they now have responsibilities as well as newfound liberties: such as being able to drink, smoke, go to hostess bars, gamble and to drive legally. The voting age was lowered from 20 to 18 in 2015.
The girls always wear gorgeous and very expensive kimono, although most admit to having rentals as the outfit is worth up to 1,000,000 yen. The boys usually wear a regular suit and tie but a few will wear traditional Japanese dress.
The ceremony takes place in every city ward around Japan; everyone can attend the event at their local city office at around 11:30 am. Though the day starts much earlier for these young adults, especially the girls who spend countless hours fixing their hair and makeup, and never mind the time it takes to slip into a kimono! After many tireless hours of primping, they can then join up with others at a select location where dozens of photographers are waiting for them.
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11 January 2011
Laba Rice Porridge Festival 2011
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/u5...tkxeDb3DJ=s660
The Laba Festival is a traditional Chinese holiday celebrated on the eighth day of the twelfth month of the lunar Chinese calendar. Laba porridge is the most popular meal in the festival.
Eating porridge on the Laba Festival is a very old tradition. As Buddhism became integrated into Chinese society, "Laba porridge" became known as "Buddha porridge," in commemoration of the date of Buddha's enlightenment. Legend has it that after Sakyamuni left secular life to become a monk, he meditated so deeply that he often forgot to eat. Once, when he was close to dying of starvation, he encountered a woman tending her flock. The woman saved his life by feeding him rice porridge with milk, enabling him to continue meditating and attain enlightenment on the day of Laba Festival. In order to commemorate this incident, every year at the Laba Festival Buddhists eat Laba porridge, also known as Buddha porridge. Many versions of the legends concerning the origins of Laba Festival exist in different regions of China.
The two most important traditions associated with Laba Festival are eating Laba porridge, and praying for peace and good health in the coming year.
Virtually every household in China eats Laba porridge on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. Filled with nuts and dried fruit, today's Laba porridge is both tastier and more appealing to the eye than the "Buddha porridge" of the past. Today, Laba porridge serves as a symbol of good fortune, long life, and fruitful harvest.
The custom of eating Laba porridge is not only an expression of respect for Buddha and the ancestral spirits. Laba porridge is also a very nourishing and healthful food. In his encyclopedic classic of herbal medicine Bencao Gangmu [Compendium of Materia Medica], eminent Ming Dynasty physician Li Shizhen states that rice porridge "increases the life force, produces saliva, nourishes the spleen and stomach, and resolves sweating due to weak constitution or health."
Eating Laba porridge is a distinctive and popular tradition of the Laba Festival. Buddhist tradition equates porridge with good fortune. Friends, family, and neighbors customarily exchange gifts of Laba porridge to express good wishes. In the past, devout Buddhists presented gifts of Laba porridge to the emperor and local officials. It can be seen that Laba porridge was a favorite holiday gift not only among the rulers and bureaucracy of feudal China, but also in every strata of society.
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11 January 2019
Celebrating Earl Scruggs
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“Here’s old Earl Scruggs with his fancy five-string banjo,” the introduction for the bluegrass banjo master’s Grand Ole Opry show stated. Today's Doodle celebrates Earl Scruggs, the man who developed the “Scruggs style” [his own three-finger method of picking] on the anniversary of the opening of the Earl Scruggs Center in 2014. His innovation changed the sound of American roots music, but fancy was not a word Scruggs would use to describe his beloved banjo. “It’s just an old hand-me-down,” he said of the Gibson Granada he’d played since the 1940s.
Born in North Carolina on January 6, 1924, Scruggs grew up working on the family farm and playing the banjo. He was 21 years old when he joined Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys band, whose sound coined the term “bluegrass music.” In that band, Scruggs met guitarist Lester Flatt with whom he would launch the Foggy Mountain Boys in the late 1940s. Their televised Flatt & Scruggs Grand Ole Opry show premiered in 1955 and gained a new wave of popularity during the folk music revival, running through 1969.
After Flatt & Scruggs split up in 1969, Earl found new fans when he bridged generations and musical genres by forming the “Earl Scruggs Revue” with sons Gary and Randy. From 1969 to 1980, the Revue was a pioneering band in merging country and bluegrass sounds with elements from rock music. In his latter years, Earl’s musical journey continued with his “Family & Friends” band.
Earl’s wife Louise Scruggs became one of the first female managers in the music industry when she began managing Flatt & Scruggs. The duo’s music appeared in the theme song for The Beverly Hillbillies and their “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” was included on the soundtrack to the 1967 film Bonnie & Clyde.
Scruggs was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, and the Nashville Songwriters’ Hall of Fame. He received several other awards and honors, including the prestigious National Medal of the Arts and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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10 Jan 2011
Coming of Age Day 2011
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/qc...cdlN1b5om=s660
Coming of Age Day or Adult's Day honors every person that has turned 20 years old over the past year. When young people reach twenty they officially become adults in Japanese society and they now have responsibilities as well as newfound liberties: such as being able to drink, smoke, go to hostess bars, gamble and to drive legally. The voting age was lowered from 20 to 18 in 2015.
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2 Jan 2011
Večerníček's 46th Anniversary
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/qF...jQ8UuW_w7=s660
Večerníček [meaning "little bedtime story" Czech and Slovak] is a television program for children in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It has been broadcast regularly for over 50 years. Before the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, two versions – one in Czech and one in Slovak – were aired in the respective parts of Czechoslovakia. Similar shows in other European countries include Sandmännchen in Germany, Esti mese in Hungary and Wieczorynka in Poland.
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30 Dec 2010
Birthday of Yun Dong-ju
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Gq...TZqVz70lz=s660Yun Dong-ju or Yoon Dong-joo was a Korean poet born in Longing, Jilin, China, who was known for his lyric poetry as well as resistance poetry.
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30 December 2013
Daniil Kharms' 108th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/dv...4iZlfx2cX=s660
Daniil Kharms was an early Soviet-era avant-gardist and absurdist poet, writer and dramatist
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27 Dec 2013
Johannes Kepler's 442nd Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/7h...y0-eC12BY=s660
Johannes Kepler was a German astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer. He is a key figure in the 17th-century scientific revolution, best known for his laws of planetary motion, and his books Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae. These works also provided one of the foundations for Newton's theory of universal gravitation.
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12 Dec 2017
Kenya Independence Day 2017
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Kenyans across the world have double the reason to celebrate December 12th.
On this day in 1963, Kenya became an independent country. Exactly one year later, it was admitted into the Commonwealth as a republic or Jamhuri [Swahili for ‘republic’]. For this reason, December 12th is known as Independence Day and also as Jamhuri Day.
Celebrations traditionally include a presidential speech at Nyayo Stadium in the capital city of Nairobi, in addition to parades and dances showcasing the country’s unique culture. Kenyans at home and abroad dress in colorful kikoys and kitenges, and feast on ugali [a popular cornmeal dish] and irio [a homey mash of potatoes and peas].
Today’s Doodle depicts the majestic Mount Kenya against the colors of the nation’s flag, which itself tells the story of Kenya’s journey to freedom. Black, red and green, along with the shield and spears of the Maasai warrior, represent the people, their fight for independence, and the country’s vast natural resources. Together, the mountain and the flag symbolize Kenya’s strength and resilience on this important day.
Hongera Kenya! Happy Independence Day!
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8 Jun 2010
Robert Schumann's 200th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/oH..._qr78dzhw=s660
Robert Schumann was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. His teacher, Friedrich Wieck, a German pianist, had assured him that he could become the finest pianist in Europe, but a hand injury ended this dream. Schumann then focused his musical energies on composing.
Until 1840, Schumann wrote exclusively for the piano. Later, he composed piano and orchestral works, and many Lieder [songs for voice and piano]. He composed four symphonies, one opera, and other orchestral, choral, and chamber works. His best-known works include Carnaval, Symphonic Studies, Kinderszenen, Kreisleriana, and the Fantasie in C. Schumann was known for infusing his music with characters through motifs, as well as references to works of literature. These characters bled into his editorial writing in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik [New Journal for Music], a Leipzig-based publication that he co-founded.
Schumann suffered from a mental disorder that first manifested in 1833 as a severe melancholic depressive episode—which recurred several times alternating with phases of "exaltation" and increasingly also delusional ideas of being poisoned or threatened with metallic items. What is now thought to have been a combination of bipolar disorder and perhaps mercury poisoning led to "manic" and "depressive" periods in Schumann's compositional productivity. After a suicide attempt in 1854, Schumann was admitted at his own request to a mental asylum in Endenich near Bonn. Diagnosed with psychotic melancholia, he died of pneumonia two years later at the age of 46, without recovering from his mental illness.
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11 Jun 2010
Jacques Cousteau's 100th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Em...4wO-ypZ9w=s660
Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the Aqua-Lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie Française.
Cousteau's legacy includes more than 120 television documentaries, more than 50 books, and an environmental protection foundation with 300,000 members.
Cousteau liked to call himself an "oceanographic technician." He was, in reality, a sophisticated showman, teacher, and lover of nature. His work permitted many people to explore the resources of the oceans.
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13 Jun 2010
Asteroid Explorer Hayabusa Returns
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/RY...sr6Fy2dCz=s660
Hayabusa [Japanese: "Peregrine falcon"] was a robotic spacecraft developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency [JAXA] to return a sample of material from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa to Earth for further analysis. Hayabusa, formerly known as MUSES-C for Mu Space Engineering Spacecraft C, was launched on 9 May 2003 and rendezvoused with Itokawa in mid-September 2005. After arriving at Itokawa, Hayabusa studied the asteroid's shape, spin, topography, color, composition, density, and history. In November 2005, it landed on the asteroid and collected samples in the form of tiny grains of asteroidal material, which were returned to Earth aboard the spacecraft on 13 June 2010.
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21 June 2002
La Fête de la Musique 2002
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/cD...IbDLz0H9E=s660
The Fête de la musique, also known in English as Music Day, Make Music Day or World Music Day, is an annual music celebration that takes place on 21 June. On Music Day the citizens of a city or country are allowed and urged to play music outside in their neighborhoods or in public spaces and parks. Free concerts are also organized, where musicians play for fun and not for payment.
The first all-day musical celebration on the day of the summer solstice was originated by Jack Lang, Minister of Culture of France, as well as by Maurice Fleuret; it was celebrated in Paris in 1982. Music Day later became celebrated in 120 countries around the world.
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6 Aug 2002
Andy Warhol's 74th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/F9...i1-Y9ozeB=s660
Andy Warhol was an American artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture. Some of his best known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell's Soup Cans [1962] and Marilyn Diptych [1962], the experimental films Empire [1964] and Chelsea Girls [1966], and the multimedia events known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable [1966–67].
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17 November 2016
Elisabeth "Ellis" Kaut's 96th Birthday
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Who's that little goblin lighting the birthday cake? The impish Pumuckl, created by Elisabeth "Ellis" Kaut, has been playfully causing mischief since 1962. Pumuckl is a kobold, a kind of sprite based in German folklore. He constantly gets into trouble but never intends any real harm. Kaut, who would be 96 today, wrote more than 100 Pumuckl stories. She received several awards and honors for her work, including the prestigious Bavarian Poetentaler literary award.
Today's Doodle was created by Barbara von Johnson, who became the primary Pumuckl illustrator in Kaut's books after winning a competition at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts in 1963.
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4 June 2019
Celebrating 50 Years Of Pride
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi9aZzR3vFM
Today's slideshow Doodle celebrates 50 years of Pride by taking us through five decades of Pride history—all told through the lens of a growing, evolving, and international Pride parade!
Below, Doodler Nate Swinehart shares more on the making-of today's Doodle, as well as what the project means to him.
The Pride Parade is a symbol of celebration and liberation for the entire LGBTQ+ community. From its early days of activism on Christopher Street in New York City, to the worldwide celebrations of today, it has empowered and given voice to a bright and vibrant community.
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2 June 2017
Gilbert Baker's 66th Birthday
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Today’s doodle is a little more colorful thanks to Gilbert Baker, creator of the rainbow flag, a symbol of pride and freedom for the LGBTQA+ community.
Teaching himself to sew, Baker put his skills to work for the San Francisco gay community, making banners for marches and protests. In 1978 Baker used those skills to create a new symbol for the LGBT Community to replace the pink triangle, a symbol of oppression and devastation from the Nazi’s classification of LGBT people in World War II. Baker’s Rainbow was a more positive and celebratory symbol.
“We needed something beautiful, something from us,” Baker explained. “The rainbow is so perfect because it really fits our diversity in terms of race, gender, ages, all of those things. Plus, it’s a natural flag—it’s from the sky!”
Making the flag was no small task. Baker gathered thirty people in the attic of the Gay Community Center in San Francisco to hand-dye and sew together over 1000 yards of cotton. The modern day rainbow flag features six colors, but the original used eight, each representing a different aspect of the community. The iconic symbol stuck and soon Baker was flooded with requests for more flags.
Baker’s sister, Ardonna Cook, also reflects on his life and legacy by sharing, “Our family is so proud of the legacy of activism and artistry that Gilbert has left to the world. He touched millions across the globe and empowered them to become stronger and more visible LGBT people. Gilbert led a bold and inspiring life by bringing The Rainbow Flag to life and it is that legacy which should guide us in respecting and celebrating diversity.”
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6 June 2009
25 Years of Tetris – courtesy of Tetris Holding, LLC
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/cV...1nTTzdbpA=s660
Tetris is a tile-matching video game created by Russian software engineer Alexey Pajitnov in 1984 for the Electronika 60 computer. It has been published by several companies, most prominently during a dispute over the appropriation of the rights in the late 1980s. After a significant period of publication by Nintendo, the rights reverted to Pajitnov in 1996, who co-founded The Tetris Company with Henk Rogers to manage licensing.
In Tetris, players complete lines by moving differently shaped pieces [tetrominoes], which descend onto the playing field. The completed lines disappear and grant the player points, and the player can proceed to fill the vacated spaces. The game ends when the playing field is filled. The longer the player can delay this inevitable outcome, the higher their score will be. In multiplayer games, the players must last longer than their opponents, and in certain versions, players can inflict penalties on opponents by completing a significant number of lines. Some adaptations have provided variations to the game's theme, such as three-dimensional displays or a system for reserving pieces.
Built on simple rules and requiring intelligence and skill, Tetris established itself as one of the great early video games. It has sold 202 million copies – approximately 70 million physical units and 132 million paid mobile game downloads – as of December 2011, making it one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time; the Game Boy version in particular is one of the best-selling games of all time, with over 35 million copies sold. The game is available on over 65 platforms, setting a Guinness world record for the most ported video game title. Tetris is rooted within popular culture and its popularity extends beyond the sphere of video games; imagery from the game has influenced architecture, music and cosplay. The game has also been the subject of various research studies that have analyzed its theoretical complexity and have shown its effect on the human brain following a session, in particular the Tetris effect.
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6 Jun 2009
Alexander Pushkin's Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/xj...c1K1e0XVQ=s660
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era. He is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet, and the founder of modern Russian literature.
Pushkin was born into Russian nobility in Moscow. His father, Sergey Lvovich Pushkin, belonged to Pushkin noble families. His maternal great-grandfather was Central-African-born general Abram Petrovich Gannibal. He published his first poem at the age of 15, and was widely recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. Upon graduation from the Lycée, Pushkin recited his controversial poem "Ode to Liberty", one of several that led to his exile by Tsar Alexander I of Russia. While under the strict surveillance of the Tsar's political police and unable to publish, Pushkin wrote his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov. His novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, was serialized between 1825 and 1832.
Pushkin was fatally wounded in a duel with his wife’s alleged lover, her brother-in-law, Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès, also known as Dantes-Gekkern, a French officer serving with the Chevalier Guard Regiment.
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