Google doodles

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12 Jun 2019
Russia Day 2019





Today’s Doodle by St. Petersburg-based guest artists Anya and Varya Kendel salutes Russia Day, celebrating the world’s largest country and the accomplishments of its people all around the world.

June 12th marks the 1990 declaration that signaled the birth of the independent Russian Federation, as well as the dissolution of the Soviet Union on the same day a year later. Declared an official national holiday in 1994, the “Day of Signing the Declaration of State Sovereignty” commemorates the birth of a new nation, the creation of the post of President, the adoption of the red, white, and blue national flag, and the new national anthem. The holiday was renamed Russia Day in 2002.

Russia Day is observed all across the country—from major metropolitan centers such as St. Petersburg to smaller cities like Kemerovo, Perm, Veliky Novgorod, Krasnoyarsk, and Tambov—with concerts and other cultural activities by day and fireworks at night.

This Doodle also highlights the beauty of Russia’s natural landscapes, featuring some of its most iconic sights, such as Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus; the Klyuchevskaya volcano; and Siberia’s Lake Baikal, the oldest and deepest lake in the world, with its distinctive Shamanka Rock.

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12 Jun 2019
Margaret Ogola's 60th Birthday

"This strength and support that is found in the African family is the most important part of our culture and should be preserved and nurtured at all costs.”
—Margaret Ogola

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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7 Jun 2019
Dragon Boat Festival 2019






Today’s Doodle celebrates the Dragon Boat Festival, also known as Duanwu Jie, which begins on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar. The exciting three-day event has occurred for over 2,000 years, and 10 years ago was inscribed on UNESCO’s list representing the intangible cultural heritage of humanity.

The festival’s practice of racing boats originated from stories of people rowing on China’s Miluo River to try and rescue the ancient poet Qu Yuan from drowning during the third century B.C. Since then, the races have grown in popularity and spread throughout the world.

The boats are traditionally made of teak wood and can range up to 100 feet in length, accommodating as many as 80 rowers. Boats are usually decorated with dragon heads at the bow and scaly tails at the stern. A sacred ritual is held before the race when the eyes are painted on, which is said to “bring the boat to life.” During the race, a drummer sits in the front of each boat, helping the rowers to work in unison.

Families clean their homes and property in preparation for the festival, hanging bunches of mugwort and calamus on doors to ward off bad luck and disease. Aside from the race itself, there are many time-honored customs associated with the festival: eating sticky rice dumplings wrapped in lotus leaves, called zongzi; drinking wine made with the ruby-colored crystal realgar; and wearing “perfume pouches,” colorful silk bags filled with fragrant medicinal herbs.

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5 Jun 2019
Jacques Demy’s 88th Birthday








Today’s Doodle celebrates French director Jacques Demy, born in Pont-Château, on this day in 1931. Demy fell in love with the movies early and longed to tell his own vividly colored visual stories. As part of postwar French cinema’s New Wave, Demy and other members of the movement, known as the Nouvelle Vague, reimagined filmmaking as a personal artistic expression rather than a commercial industry, inspiring a generation of independent auteurs in the process.

As a child, Demy created his own puppet shows and animated home movies before convincing his parents to let him study film in Paris. After two years at France’s Technical School of Photography and Cinematography, he assisted animator Paul Grimault and director Georges Roquier in the 1950s before getting the chance to direct his first feature.

Set in his childhood hometown of Nantes, Lola starred Anouk Aimée as a heartbroken cabaret singer awaiting the return of a lost love. The bittersweet film debuted in 1961. A year later, Demy married Agnès Varda, who would later direct her husband’s life story in the singular biopic Jacquot de Nantes, based in part on his own diaries.

Inspired by American musicals, Demy created a world of his own in wistfully romantic films like Les Demoiselles de Rochefort [The Young Girls of Rochefort], which featured Hollywood legend Gene Kelly, and Les Parapluies de Cherbourg [The Umbrellas of Cherbourg], which put Catherine Deneuve in the spotlight and won the grand prize at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival.

A consummate cinephile and audiovisual craftsman, Demy infused his musicals and fantasies with a documentarian’s eye and a poet’s heart.

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4 Jun 2019
Mudik 2019







Starting today, the big cities of the Indonesian archipelago empty out as people return home for the annual Idul Fitri feast [also known as lebaran], jamming the roads and railways of over 11,000 islands, including Java, Sumatra, Borneo, New Guinea, Sulawesi, and Kalimantan. Today’s Doodle celebrates this festive mass exodus, known as mudik, an Indonesian term which means ”homebound trip” towards one’s home village.

Mudik is about strengthening the bonds of community, spending quality time with family and loved ones, taking part in traditional rituals, and visiting ancestral gravesites to pay respects. It’s also a time to share treats like sweet Nastar cakes and cheese-filled Kastengel cakes.

The practice of returning home dates as far back as the 14th century, although the term "mudik" became popular during the 1970s. Traffic jams are common and special arrangements are made to ensure that transportation goes as smoothly as possible. Officials estimate that over 20 million Indonesians will make the joyful journey to all parts of the country.

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24 May 2019
Concha Michel’s 120th Birthday






She sang duets with Frida Kahlo, performed for John D. Rockefeller, modeled for Diego Rivera, and traveled the world supported only by her voice and her guitar. Today’s Doodle by Mexico-based guest artist Emilia Schettino celebrates the life of the Mexican musician, folklorist, and activist Concha Michel.

Born in Villa de Purificación, Jalisco, on this day in 1899, Concepción Michel was described as “ungovernable” as a child but fell in love with music early, learning to sing and play guitar at a Catholic convent founded by her grandfather.

Known for her indigenous Mexican attire, Michel wore embroidered dresses with braided hair in the style of Mexico’s Tehuana women. She traveled throughout Mexico learning traditional songs and singing her own corridos revolucionarios or revolutionary ballads, becoming one of the few women singing this traditional Mexican form at the time.

During the 1930s she traveled to the United States where she performed at the Museum of Modern Art and the Rockefeller’s grand home. Proceeds of her performances paid for trips to Europe and the Soviet Union, where she met feminist thinkers like Clara Zetkin and Alexandra Kollontai.

In 1950, she established the Folklore Institute in Morelia, Michoacán, part of a lifelong effort to preserve Mexico’s indigenous culture. As she put it in her autobiography, “The world was my university; my graduation, voluntary. My experience was direct, confirmed by life.”

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8 May 2013
Saul Bass' 93rd Birthday





Music: Dave Brubeck - "Unsquare Dance"

"Failure is built into creativity… the creative act involves this element of ‘newness’ and ‘experimentalism,’ then one must expect and accept the possibility of failure.”

“I want everything we do to be beautiful. I don’t give a damn whether the client understands that that’s worth anything, or that the client thinks it’s worth anything, or whether it is worth anything. It’s worth it to me. It’s the way I want to live my life. I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares.”
—Saul Bass, Logo Designer

"His titles are not simply imaginative identification tags; when his work comes on the screen, the movie itself truly begins,"
—Martin Scorsese

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6 May 2013
Mihailo Petrović Alas' 145th birthday




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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2 May 2013
Satyajit Ray's 92nd Birthday






Satyajit Raywas an Indian film director, scriptwriter, documentary filmmaker, author, essayist, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligrapher, and music composer. Widely regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers in film history, he is celebrated for works such as The Apu Trilogy , The Music Room , The Big City and Charulata . Ray was born in Calcutta to renowned writer Sukumar Ray who was prominent in the field of arts and literature. Starting his career as a commercial artist, he was drawn into independent filmmaking after meeting French filmmaker Jean Renoir and viewing Vittorio De Sica's Italian neorealist film Bicycle Thieves during a visit to London.

Ray directed 36 films, including feature films, documentaries and shorts and authored several short stories and novels, primarily for young children and teenagers. Feluda, the sleuth, and Professor Shonku, the scientist in his science fiction stories, Tarini Khuro, the storyteller and Lalmohan Ganguly, the novelist are popular fictional characters created by him. In 1978, he was awarded an honorary degree by Oxford University.

Ray is a cultural icon in India and in Bengali communities worldwide. Following his death, the city of Calcutta came to a virtual standstill, as hundreds of thousands of people gathered around his house to pay their last respects.

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1 May 2013
Labour Day 2013 [France]

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1 May 2013
Labour Day 2013

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30 Apr 2013
Jaroslav Hasek's 130th Birthday [CZ]


Jaroslav Hašek was a Czech writer, humorist, satirist, journalist, bohemian and anarchist. He is best known for his novel The Fate of the Good Soldier Švejk during the World War, an unfinished collection of farcical incidents about a soldier in World War I and a satire on the ineptitude of authority figures. The novel has been translated into about 60 languages, making it the most translated novel in Czech literature.

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23 Apr 2013
St George's Day 2013

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22 Apr 2013
Dooly the Little Dinosaur's Birthday





Dooly the Little Dinosaur is a 1987 South Korean comic series and animated film and television series created by Kim Soo-jung. Dooly is one of the most respected and commercially successful characters of South Korean animation. It was printed in 1995 in South Korea. Dooly also has a resident registration card, which means he is a citizen of South Korea.

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21 Apr 2013
Sir Norman Parkinson's 100th Birthday



Norman Parkinson was a celebrated English portrait and fashion photographer. His work revolutionised British fashion photography, as he moved the craft out of the studio and into outdoor settings. He became an official royal photographer in 1969, taking photographs for Princess Anne's 19th birthday. He continued with many other royal portraits, including official portraits of Queen Elizabeth for her 75th birthday in 1975. He received many honors during his life including the Royal Photographic Society's Progress Medal, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Society of Magazine Photographers, a Google Doodle, and a British postage stamp.

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17 Apr 2013
Adam Frantisek Kollar's 295th Birthday






Adam František Kollár de Keresztén was a Slovak jurist, Imperial-Royal Court Councillor and Chief Imperial-Royal Librarian, a member of Natio Hungarica in the Kingdom of Hungary, a historian, ethnologist, an influential advocate of Empress Maria Theresa's Enlightened and centralist policies. His advancement of Maria Theresa's status in the Kingdom of Hungary as its apostolic ruler in 1772 was used as an argument in support of the subsequent Habsburg annexations of Galicia and Dalmatia. Kollár is also credited with coining the term ethnology and providing its first definition in 1783. Some authors see him as one of the earliest pro-Slovak, pro-Slavic, and pan-Slavic activists in the Habsburg Monarchy.

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17 Apr 2013
Chavela Vargas' 94th Birthday




Isabel Vargas Lizano, better known as Chavela Vargas , was a Costa Rica-born Mexican singer. She was especially known for her rendition of Mexican rancheras, but she is also recognized for her contribution to other genres of popular Latin American music. She was an influential interpreter in the Americas and Europe, muse to figures such as Pedro Almodóvar, hailed for her haunting performances, and called "la voz áspera de la ternura", 'the rough voice of tenderness'. The Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, presented her with a Latin Grammy in 2007.

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14 Apr 2013
Alfredo Volpi's 117th Birthday




Alfredo Volpi was a prominent painter of the artistic and cultural Brazilian modernist movement. He was born in Lucca, Italy but, less than two years later, he was brought by his parents to São Paulo, Brazil, became a Brazilian citizen, and lived for the majority of his life. He was one of the most important artists of the so-called Grupo Santa Helena, formed in the 1930s with Francisco Rebolo, Clóvis Graciano, Mario Zanini, Fulvio Pennacchi, and others.

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13 Apr 2013
Songkran Festival 2013




Songkran is the Thai New Year's national holiday. Songkran is on 13 April every year, but the holiday period extends from 14 to 15 April. In 2018 the Thai cabinet extended the festival nationwide to five days, 12–16 April, to enable citizens to travel home for the holiday. In 2019, the holiday was observed 12–16 April as 13 April fell on a Saturday. The word "Songkran" comes from the Sanskrit word saṃkrānti, literally "astrological passage", meaning transformation or change. It coincides with the rising of Aries on the astrological chart and with the New Year of many calendars of South and Southeast Asia, in keeping with the Hindu Calendar and Buddhist calendar. The New Year takes place at virtually the same time as the new year celebrations of many countries in South Asia like Bangladesh, Cambodia, China , India , Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

In Thailand, New Year is now officially celebrated on 1 January. Songkran was the official New Year until 1888, when it was switched to a fixed date of 1 April. Then in 1940, this date was shifted to 1 January. The traditional Thai New Year Songkran was transformed into a national holiday. Celebrations are famous for the public water fights framed as ritual cleansing.

[9A]

9 Apr 2013
Hong Xun Tao's 85th Birthday








The Magic Brush is a Chinese animated stop-motion film produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. There were two versions of the film. In 1954 the first film was called "Ma Liang and his Magic Brush". In 1955 the second film was called "Magic Brush". They are also interchangeably referred to as the "Magic Pen" or "Magical Pen".

The story has been readapted a number of times by Chinese authors, common versions include the story of the same name from author Han Xing as well as Hong Xuntao.

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7 Apr 2013
500th Anniversary of the Piri Reis Map









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.

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2 Apr 2013
Maria Sibylla Merian's 366th Birthday





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.

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8 May 2013
Parent's Day 2013

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26 May 2013
Mother’s Day 2013 International

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30 May 2013
Potato Day 2013




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.

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5 Jun 2013
Thomas Chippendale's 295th Birthday




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].

[9A]

10 Jun 2013
Maurice Sendak's 85th Birthday






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.

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10 Jun 2013
Portugal National Day 2013

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12 Jun 2013
Dragon Boat Festival 2013

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12 Jun 2013
Philippine Independence Day 2013

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12 Jun 2013
Dia Dos Namorados 2013




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.

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16 Jun 2013
Father's Day 2013

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16 Jun 2013
Granadas Millenium








One of my favorite places I've ever visited: Granada, Spain.

Sketch from a rooftop patio overlooking the city, circa 2007

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.

Another sketch from the rooftop. This view looks upward, revealing more houses winding their way up the hillside.

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.

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20 Jun 2013
Aleksander Fredro's 220th birthday






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.

[9A]

21 Jun 2013

Zlatko Grgić's 82nd Birthday









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].

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25 Jun 2013
Antoni Gaudí's 161st Birthday





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.

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3 Jul 2013
Franz Kafka's 130th Birthday




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.

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4 Jul 2013
Ukichiro Nakaya's 113th Birthday




Ukichiro 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.

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5 Jul 2013
Venezuela Independence Day 2013

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7 Jul 2013
Tanabata [Star Festival]





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.

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28 Jul 2013
Peru Independence Day 2013

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29 Jul 2013
National Thai Language Day






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.

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1 Aug 2013
Swiss National Day 2013








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.

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1 Aug 2013
Maria Mitchell's 195th Birthday





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.

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7 Aug 2013
Abebe Bikila's 81st Birthday








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.

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7 Nov 2013
Ary Barroso's 110th Birthday






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.

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25 Dec 2013
Salah Jahin's 83rd Birthday





Muhammad Salah Eldin Bahgat Ahmad Helmy, known as "Salah Jaheen" or "Salah Jahin"
was a leading Egyptian poet, lyricist, playwright and cartoonist.

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30 Dec 2013
Daniil Kharms' 108th Birthday





Daniil Kharms was an early Soviet-era avant-gardist and absurdist poet, writer and dramatist.

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20 Jan 2020

Mufidah Abdul Rahman's 106th Birthday




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.

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20 January 2011
Birthday of Takayanagi Kenjiro





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.