-
7 Apr 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.
The Piri Reis map is in the Library of the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, but is not usually on display to the public.
-
2 Apr 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.
-
-
-
30 May 2013
Potato Day 2013
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/GC...zm8vt9xmj=s660
The year 2008 was declared the International Year of the Potato by the United Nations, noting that the potato is a staple food in the diet of the world's population, and affirming the need to focus world attention on the role that the potato can play in providing food security and eradicating poverty. Food and Agriculture Organization was invited to facilitate its implementation.
The corresponding resolution adopted on 25 November 2005 by the Food and Agriculture Organization, which was to facilitate the implementation of the year, affirmed "the need to revive public awareness of the relationship that exists between poverty, food security, malnutrition and the potential contribution of the potato to defeating hunger."
It was hoped that International Year designation would do for the potato what the International Year of Rice [2004] did for that food staple, namely, inspire exhibits, educational programs, films, publications and greater public awareness of multi-national efforts on behalf of our food resources. The year 2008 was also designated the National Year of the Potato in Peru.
-
5 Jun 2013
Thomas Chippendale's 295th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Va...OEmeXJGb4=s660
Thomas Chippendale was born in Otley in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England in June 1718. He became a cabinet-maker in London, designing furniture in the mid-Georgian, English Rococo, and Neoclassical styles. In 1754 he published a book of his designs, titled The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director, upon which success he became renowned. The designs are regarded as representing the current British fashion for furniture of that period and are now reproduced globally. He was buried 16 November 1779, according to the records of St Martin-in-the-Fields, in the cemetery since built upon by the National Gallery. Chippendale furniture is much valued; a padouk cabinet that was offered for auction during 2008 sold for £2,729,250 [$3,848,542].
-
10 Jun 2013
Maurice Sendak's 85th Birthday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgtEDdumbwo
Admired for his award-winning illustrations and beloved for his imaginative storytelling, Maurice Sendak is an American children's book legend. Whether they are monsters stomping through a forest, a boy cruising in a bread plane, or a parade of pigs celebrating a birthday, the unique characters of Sendak's books have sparked the imaginations of children for decades. His talents and ambitions, however, are not limited to children's books. He also created television shows and designed sets for operas and ballets.
To honor such a cherished cultural icon is no small task. How can anyone sing the praises of Maurice Sendak with enough affection? The doodlers and I decided to let Sendak's characters do the talking, or the walking rather. The doodle is a kind of parade-- sixteen of his characters march through their stories and gather around a birthday cake decked with candles that read "85." Even his dog, Herman, makes an appearance to wish Maurice a warm happy birthday.
-
-
-
-
12 Jun 2013
Dia Dos Namorados 2013
https://www.google.com/logos/2013/di...1529005-hp.jpg
Dia dos Namorados is holiday celebrated on June 12 in Brazil. The date is celebrated with gifts, romantic activities, decorations and festivities.
The date is June 12th since it's close to Saint Anthony's Day on June 13. The term "Dia dos Namorados" is also used in other Portuguese-speaking countries to refer to Valentine's Day.
-
-
16 Jun 2013
Granadas Millenium
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ir...Hsgj_uQEg=s660
One of my favorite places I've ever visited: Granada, Spain.
When it popped up in the pipeline as a potential Google Doodle celebrating the Granadas Millenium, I knew I had to do it. A fellow doodler was gracious enough to let me take the assignment off his hands, though it meant I had to juggle the deadline with a mildly interactive Father's Day doodle on the same day.
While the doodle acknowledges a festive occasion, I really wanted to highlight the amazing juxtapositions of the city itself: A majestic Moorish/Medieval stronghold against the stuccoed Spanish houses. The expanse of the Sierra Nevada mountain range against the narrow winding alleyways. The city itself is at once wonderfully alive and sleepy with plenty to do or not do.
-
20 Jun 2013
Aleksander Fredro's 220th birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/t6...yHXwhPR72=s660
Aleksander Fredro was a Polish poet, playwright and author active during Polish Romanticism in the period of partitions by neighboring empires. His works including plays written in the octosyllabic verse and in prose as well as fables, belong to the canon of Polish literature. Fredro was harshly criticized by some of his contemporaries for light-hearted humor or even alleged immorality which led to years of his literary silence. Many of Fredro's dozens of plays were published and popularized only after his death. His best-known works have been translated into English, French, German, Russian, Czech, Romanian, Hungarian and Slovak.
-
21 Jun 2013
Zlatko Grgić's 82nd Birthday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ygZhnA0BUM
Zlatko Grgić was a Croatian animator who emigrated to Canada in the late 1960s.
Born in Zagreb, in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Grgić was nominated for the Academy Award for Animated Short Film at the 52nd Academy Awards for his 1979 film Dream Doll, produced by Bob Godfrey.
Grgić created the animated series Professor Balthazar for Zagreb Film and also animated 24 episodes of its series Maxi Cat [1971–73].
-
25 Jun 2013
Antoni Gaudí's 161st Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/7W...u937QBgyQ=s660
Antoni Gaudí i Cornet was a Catalan architect known as the greatest exponent of Catalan Modernism. Gaudí's works have a highly individualized, sui generis style. Most are located in Barcelona, including his main work, the church of the Sagrada Família.
Gaudí's work enjoys global popularity and continuing admiration and study by architects. His masterpiece, the still-incomplete Sagrada Família, is the most-visited monument in Spain. Between 1984 and 2005, seven of his works were declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. Gaudí's Roman Catholic faith intensified during his life and religious images appear in many of his works. This earned him the nickname "God's Architect" and led to calls for his beatification.
-
3 Jul 2013
Franz Kafka's 130th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/3N...P7_W9ASK4=s660
Franz Kafka was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typically features isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers. It has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity. His best known works include "Die Verwandlung" ["The Metamorphosis"], Der Process [The Trial], and Das Schloss [The Castle]. The term Kafkaesque has entered the English language to describe situations like those found in his writing.
-
4 Jul 2013
Ukichiro Nakaya's 113th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/uf...yxSdBUctw=s660Ukichiro Nakaya was a Japanese physicist and science essayist known for his work in glaciology and low-temperature sciences. He is credited with making the first artificial snowflakes.
-
-
7 Jul 2013
Tanabata [Star Festival]
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/r7...IBy40u6qQ=s660
Tanabata, also known as the Star Festival, is a Japanese festival originating from the Chinese Qixi Festival. It celebrates the meeting of the deities Orihime and Hikoboshi [represented by the stars Vega and Altair respectively]. According to legend, the Milky Way separates these lovers, and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the lunisolar calendar. The date of Tanabata varies by region of the country, but the first festivities begin on 7 July of the Gregorian calendar. The celebration is held at various days between July and August.
-
-
29 Jul 2013
National Thai Language Day
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/6W...J5iO1PKBw=s660
Thai, Central Thai [historically Siamese], is the national language of Thailand and de facto official language; it is the first language of the Central Thai people and most Thai Chinese, depending on age. It is a member of the Tai group of the Kra–Dai language family, and one of over 60 languages of Thailand. Over half of Thai vocabulary is derived from or borrowed from Pali, Sanskrit, Mon and Old Khmer. It is a tonal and analytic language, similar to Chinese and Vietnamese.
Thai has a complex orthography and system of relational markers. Spoken Thai, depending on standard sociolinguistic factors such as age, gender, class, spatial proximity, and the urban/rural divide, is partly mutually intelligible with Lao, Isan, and some fellow Southwestern Tai languages. These languages are written with slightly different scripts but are linguistically similar and effectively form a dialect continuum.
-
1 Aug 2013
Swiss National Day 2013
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Xh...qveaNkFzn=s660
Swiss National Day, set on August 1st, recognizes the founding of the Swiss Confederation in 1291 with fireworks, bonfire, and festive Swiss lanterns, music, and cuisine.
Switzerland was founded as an independent nation in 1291, through the alliance of the cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden. This holiday has been celebrated since 1891, but was only recognized as the official national holiday in 1994.
-
1 Aug 2013
Maria Mitchell's 195th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/vd...dv8wPsBtA=s660
Maria Mitchell was an American astronomer, librarian, naturalist, and educator. In 1847, she discovered a comet named 1847 VI [modern designation C/1847 T1] that was later known as “Miss Mitchell’s Comet” in her honor. She won a gold medal prize for her discovery, which was presented to her by King Christian VIII of Denmark in 1848.
Mitchell was the first internationally known woman to work as both a professional astronomer and a professor of astronomy after accepting a position at Vassar College in 1865. She was also the first woman elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
-
7 Aug 2013
Abebe Bikila's 81st Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/R0...7Pcb8HShk=s660
Shambel Abebe Bikila was an Ethiopian marathon runner who was a back-to-back Olympic marathon champion. He is the first black African Olympic gold medalist, winning his first gold medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome while running barefoot. At the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, he won his second gold medal. In turn, he became the first athlete to successfully defend an Olympic marathon title. In both victories, he ran in world record time.
On March 22, 1969, Abebe was paralysed due to a car accident. He regained some upper-body mobility, but he never walked again. While he was receiving medical treatment in England, Abebe competed in archery and table tennis at the 1970 Stoke Mandeville Games in London. Those Games were an early predecessor of the Paralympic Games. He competed in both sports at a 1971 competition for the disabled in Norway and won its cross-country sleigh-riding event. Abebe died at age 41 on October 25, 1973, of a cerebral hemorrhage related to his accident four years earlier. He received a state funeral, and Emperor Haile Selassie declared a national day of mourning. Many schools, venues, and events, including Abebe Bikila Stadium in Addis Ababa, are named after him. He is the subject of biographies and films documenting his athletic career, and he is often featured in publications about the marathon and the Olympics.
-
7 Nov 2013
Ary Barroso's 110th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/jx...ynZPNx_5k=s660
Ary de Resende Barroso, better known as Ary Barroso, was a Brazilian composer, pianist, soccer commentator, and talent-show host on radio and TV. He was one of Brazil's most successful songwriters in the first half of the 20th century. Barroso also composed many songs for Carmen Miranda during her career.
-
25 Dec 2013
Salah Jahin's 83rd Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/wz...N-yxSK9yJ=s660
Muhammad Salah Eldin Bahgat Ahmad Helmy, known as "Salah Jaheen" or "Salah Jahin"
was a leading Egyptian poet, lyricist, playwright and cartoonist.
-
30 Dec 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.
-
20 Jan 2020
Mufidah Abdul Rahman's 106th Birthday
https://www.google.com/logos/doodles...8262.2-2xa.gif
Today’s Doodle, illustrated by Cairo-based guest artist Deena Mohamed, celebrates Egyptian lawyer Mufidah Abdul Rahman on her 106th birthday. Born in Cairo on this day in 1914, she was among the first women to graduate from Cairo University’s Faculty of Law and became the premier female attorney in Egypt. Her determined efforts in and out of the courtroom helped forge the path to political equality for Egyptian women.
While practicing law, Mufidah built relationships with like-minded women advocates and was inspired to co-found the National Feminist Party, a women’s organization fighting for universal suffrage in Egypt. Her social advocacy led her to be recruited into Bint al-Nil [[“Daughter of the Nile”), a feminist union seeking to overcome sociocultural repressions that the women of this era faced.
In 1951, Bint al-Nil founder Doria Shafik led an interruption of the Egyptian Parliament to demand women’s right to vote and hold political office. In response, Shafik was summoned to court and handpicked the esteemed Abdul Rahman to defend her.
Considered to be a case against not only Shafik but also the Egyptian women’s rights movement as a whole, the trial presented a critical opportunity for advocates to have their voices heard. Mufidah’s impassioned defense of Shafik fanned the flames of the cause, and this landmark case helped Egyptian women win their right to vote in 1956.
-
20 January 2011
Birthday of Takayanagi Kenjiro
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/EM...BJt4BJhXQ=s660
Kenjiro Takayanagi was a Japanese engineer and a pioneer in the development of television. Although he failed to gain much recognition in the West, he built the world's first all-electronic television receiver, and is referred to as "the father of television".
In 1925, Takayanagi began research on television after reading about the new technology in a French magazine. He developed a system similar to that of John Logie Baird, using a Nipkow disk to scan the subject and generate electricalsignals. But unlike Baird, Takayanagi took the important step of using a cathode ray tube to display the received signal, thereby developing the first "all-electronic" television set.
In subsequent years, Takayanagi continued to play a key role in the development of television at NHK [the Japan Broadcasting Corporation] and then at JVC [Victor Company of Japan], where he eventually became vice president. He was also involved in the development of color television and video tape recorders.
-
20 January 2010
Festival of San Sebastian
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/xH...VtFsSLE8s=s660
The San Sebastián Street Festival is a Puerto Rican festival that takes place in the Old San Juan, in honor of Saint Sebastian, celebrated by the Catholic Church on January 20. The event starts the third Thursday of January through Sunday with an attendance of more than 200,000 people, making this activity recognized internationally. The celebration has been introduced in Florida and Texas in the 2010s.The festivals are characterized by the presence of “Cabezudos” as well as the Puerto Rican artisan market, and it variety of food and rums and more than 6,000 persons participate.
-
-
4 February 2013
Last day of the Canadian Penny
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-j...pmM2RieZU=s660
Production of the penny ceased in May 2012, and the Royal Canadian Mint ceased distribution of them as of February 4, 2013. However, like all other discontinued currency in the Canadian monetary system, the coin remains legal tender. Nevertheless, once distribution of the coin ceased, vendors were no longer expected to return pennies as change for cash purchases, and were encouraged to round purchases to the nearest five cents. Non-cash transactions are still denominated to the cent.
-
-
6 Mar 2013
Ghana Independence Day 2013
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/LE...Dap0gznFw=s660
The Independence Day of Ghana is a national holiday celebrated yearly. This day is an official state holiday for the citizens of Ghana both within and in the diaspora to honour and celebrate the Heroes of Ghana who led the country to attain its independence. The Independence Day is celebrated on March 6 every year. Independence Day is also remembrance of the day that marks the declaration of Ghanaian independence from the British colonial rule
-
7 Mar 2013
Volodymyr Dakhno's 81st Birthday
https://www.google.com/logos/2013/vo...1061005-hp.jpg
Volodymyr Dakhno was a Ukrainian animator, animation film director and scriptwriter. He was a laureate of the Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine [1988], and a People's Artist of Ukraine [1996]. Dakhno was best known for the animation series Cossacks. He worked at Kievnauchfilm, which has since been renamed Ukranimafilm.
-
9 Mar 2013
Luis Barragan's 111th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/t3...1vY8CN0Rg=s660
Luis Ramiro Barragán Morfín was a Mexican architect and engineer. His work has influenced contemporary architects visually and conceptually. Barragán's buildings are frequently visited by international students and professors of architecture. He studied as an engineer in his home town, while undertaking the entirety of additional coursework to obtain the title of architect.
Barragán won the Pritzker Prize, the highest award in architecture, in 1980, and his personal home, the Luis Barragán House and Studio, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004.
-
10 Mar 2013
Joseph von Eichendorff's 225th Birthday
https://www.google.com/logos/2013/jo...1057008-hp.jpg
Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff was a German poet, novelist, playwright, literary critic, translator, and anthologist. Eichendorff was one of the major writers and critics of Romanticism. Ever since their publication and up to the present day, some of his works have been very popular in Germany.
-
12 Mar 2013
André Le Nôtre's 400th Birthday
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/y_...qzNBiNFYL=s660
André Le Nôtre, originally rendered as André Le Nostre, was a French landscape architect and the principal gardener of King Louis XIV of France. He was the landscape architect who designed the gardens of the Palace of Versailles, and his work represents the height of the French formal garden style, or jardin à la française.
-