Google doodles

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Mar 13, 2006
Percival Lowell's 151st Birthday



Percival Lawrence Lowell was an American businessman, author, mathematician, and astronomer who fueled speculation that there were canals on Mars. He founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and formed the beginning of the effort that led to the discovery of Pluto 14 years after his death.

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Apr 21, 2006
Earth Day 2006

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May 21, 2006
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 147th Birthday


Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for A Study in Scarlet, the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Holmes and Dr. Watson. The Sherlock Holmes stories are considered milestones in the field of crime fiction.

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Jun 12, 2012
Russia Day 2012

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Jun 21, 2012
Yuri Kondratyuk's 115th Birthday




Yuri Vasilievich Kondratyuk was a Soviet engineer and mathematician. He was a pioneer of astronautics and spaceflight, a theoretician and a visionary who, in the early 20th century, developed the first known lunar orbit rendezvous [LOR], a key concept for landing and return spaceflight from Earth to the Moon. The LOR was later used for the plotting of the first actual human spaceflight to the Moon. Many other aspects of spaceflight and space exploration are covered in his works.

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Jun 21, 2012
Viktor Tsoi's 50th Birthday



Viktor Robertovich Tsoi was a Soviet and Russian singer and songwriter who co-founded Kino, one of the most popular and musically influential bands in the history of Russian music.

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Jun 28, 2012
Sergiu Celibidache's 100th Birthday




Sergiu Celibidache was a Romanian conductor, composer, musical theorist, and teacher. Educated in his native Romania, and later in Paris and Berlin, Celibidache's career in music spanned over five decades, including tenures as principal conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Sicilian Symphony Orchestra and several other European orchestras. Later in life, he taught at Mainz University in Germany and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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Jul 8, 2012
František Křižík's 165th Birthday






František Křižík was a Czech inventor, electrical engineer, and entrepreneur.

František Křižík built the first electric railway in the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1903. The track gauge was 1,435 mm [4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in] standard gauge. The maximum speed was 50 km/h [31 mph].

The main beltasteroid5719 Křižík was named in his honor.

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Jul 20, 2012
Colombia Independence Day 2012 by Armando Villegas




July 20th is an important day in Colombia. This year we've rediscovered the meaning of the Colombian flag and the spirit of freedom that Simon Bolivar sought out with the help of the modern artist, Armando Villegas, "El Maestro". In describing this project he shared that ¨An assignment of this nature comes with lots of responsibility. I like that it has a meaning and a projection, specially when it comes to such a lively media¨.

After first meeting with Villegas he began exploring all the past Colombian doodles and the idea emerged of Bolivar combined with the colors of the Colombian flag and native animals filling in the background. Beyond being the country's national colors, according to Villegas they have a universal value: yellow, blue, and red are the most important colors in nature and the base of any pictorial work.

It's done in the style he's most known for as well, that of subtraction. What you see is the result of his discovering of different shapes within the material. One shape leads to another which leads to yet another. This artistic process is much like how he hopes users will think about the doodle: ¨My work is intended to disturb, motivate, create a curiosity on the people to make them reflect about the images I’ve created and their significance as homeland sense through universal colors¨.

The combination of the colors with the elements of nature also have a profound meaning. Within the red section primary beings refer to an early stage. The blue is a transition period with the animals evolving and changing. The yellow is the final result where birds, specially five hummingbirds, symbolize the liberty Bolivar fought for. The significance continues further referencing human evolution where red depicts the present, blue the past, and yellow the brilliant future ahead.

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Jul 21, 2012
Belgium National Day 2012



Belgian National Dayis the national holiday of Belgium commemorated annually on 21 July. It is one of Belgium's ten public holidays and marks the anniversary of the investiture of King Leopold I, the country's first monarch, in 1831. Historically, National Day is marked by a televised speech by the King.

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Aug 13, 2012
Cassiano Branco's 115th Birthday



Cassiano Viriato Branco was a Portuguese architect. He is one of the most important architects of the first half of the 20th century in Portugal. Some of his projects include the Coliseu do Porto, Hotel Vitória and the Portugal dos Pequenitos theme park.

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Jul 27, 2012
Opening Ceremony 2012



The 2012 Summer Olympics [officially known as the Games of the XXX Olympiad and commonly known as London 2012] was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, United Kingdom.

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Aug 12, 2012
Closing Ceremony 2012



The 2012 Summer Olympics [officially known as the Games of the XXX Olympiad and commonly known as London 2012] was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, United Kingdom.

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Aug 15, 2012
National Liberation Day of Korea 2012





As is true of many wildcats in cultures across the world, the tiger holds special significance in Korean myth and legend. [One of my favorite folktales is “The Tiger and the Persimmon”--read it if you have a chance! This year we celebrated Korea’s National Liberation Day with an illustration of kids wearing traditional hanbok, gamboling with a large friendly tiger.

Published by Kevin Laughlin

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Aug 15, 2012
India Independence Day 2012





Independence Day is celebrated annually on 15 August as a national holiday in India commemorating the nation's independence from the United Kingdom on 15 August 1947, the day when the provisions of the 1947 Indian Independence Act, which transferred legislative sovereignty to the Indian Constituent Assembly, came into effect. India retained King George VI as head of state until its transition to a full republic, when the nation adopted the Constitution of India on 26 January 1950 [celebrated as Indian Republic Day] and replaced the dominion prefix, Dominion of India, with the enactment of the sovereign law Constitution of India. India attained independence following the Independence Movement noted for largely non-violent resistance and civil disobedience.

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Aug 17, 2012
Indonesia Independence Day 2012





This is the 67th anniversary of the Republic of Indonesia's independence in 1945. An archipelago that consists of over 17,000 islands, 33 provinces, hundreds of ethnic groups, dozens of dialects and a diverse culture that influences day-to-day life from dance to cuisine, the world's fourth most populous country is a growing global economic power.

One of the changes that had also taken place during the Japanese occupation included the population in Indonesia undertaking military training. Conflict occurred not only with the Dutch, but also when the Japanese tried to re-establish control in October 1945 in Bandung, and furthermore when the British tried to establish control. After a long struggle for independence, the freedom of Indonesia from the Dutch was gained in 1949 as a part of a period of decolonization in Asia.

Independence day celebrations call for a community gathering in village squares or city neighborhoods to partake in various games where children [[and adults) compete in sack races, eating krupuk [[an Indonesian cracker) or fruit hanging on a string and climbing a pinang tree to reach for a prize, to name a few. Today's Doodle showcases the traditions of this happy occasion.

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Aug 21, 2012
Consuelo Velazquez's 96th Birthday




Consuelo Velázquez Torres was a Mexican concert pianist, songwriter and recording artist. She was the composer of famous Mexican ballads such as “Bésame mucho" [kiss me alot], "Amar y vivir", and "Cachito".

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Aug 23, 2012
Alexander Grin's 132th Birthday




Aleksandr Stepanovich Grinevsky [better known by his pen name, Aleksandr Green] was a Russian writer, notable for his romantic novels and short stories, mostly set in an unnamed fantasy land with a European or Latin American flavor [Grin's fans often refer to this land as Grinlandia]. Most of his writings deal with sea, adventures, and love.

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Aug 31, 2012
Maria Montessori's 142nd Birthday


Maria Tecla Artemisia Montessori was an Italian physician and educator best known for the philosophy of education that bears her name, and her writing on scientific pedagogy.

She felt by working independently children could reach new levels of autonomy and become self-motivated to reach new levels of understanding. Montessori also came to believe that acknowledging all children as individuals and treating them as such would yield better learning and fulfilled potential in each particular child.

She continued to adapt and refine the materials she had developed earlier, altering or removing exercises which were chosen less frequently by the children. Based on her observations, Montessori experimented with allowing children free choice of the materials, uninterrupted work, and freedom of movement and activity within the limits set by the environment. She began to see independence as the aim of education, and the role of the teacher as an observer and director of children's innate psychological development.

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Sep 3, 2012
Chabuca Granda's 92nd Birthday





María Isabel Granda Larco, better known as Chabuca Granda, was a Peruvian singer and composer. She created and interpreted a vast number of Criollo waltzes with Afro-Peruvian rhythms. Her best known song is "La flor de la canela" [The Cinnamon Flower].

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Sep 15, 2012
Costa Rica Independence Day 2012

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Sep 23, 2012
Solomiya Krushelnytska's 140th Birthday





Solomiya Amvrosiivna Krushelnytska was a Ukrainian soprano, considered to be one of the brightest opera stars of the first half of the 20th century.

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Sep 24, 2012
Howard Florey's 114th Birthday




Howard Walter Florey, Baron Florey of Adelaide and Marston was an Australian pharmacologist and pathologist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Sir Ernst Chain and Sir Alexander Fleming for his role in the development of penicillin.

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Oct 3, 2012
German Reunification Day 2012





German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic [GDR] became part of the Federal Republic of Germany [FRG] to form the reunited nation of Germany.

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October 3, 2007
Sputnik - 50th Anniversary





Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957. It orbited for three weeks before its batteries died and then orbited silently for two months before it fell back into the atmosphere on the 25th December 1957.

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Mar 1, 2008
St. David's Day 2008





Saint David's Day, or the Feast of Saint David, is the feast day of Saint David, the patron saint of Wales, and falls on 1 March, the date of Saint David's death in 589 AD.

Traditional festivities include wearing daffodils and leeks, recognised symbols of Wales and Saint David respectively, eating traditional Welsh food including cawl and Welsh rarebit, and women wearing traditional Welsh dress.

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Mar 3, 2008
Alexander Graham Bell's 161st Birthday



Alexander Graham Bell was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist, and engineer who is credited with inventing and patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company [AT&T] in 1885

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Mar 20, 2008
First Day of Spring 2008

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May 15, 2008
Anniversary of the First Film Projection

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May 16, 2008
Invention of the First Laser

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Jun 4, 2008
First Hot Air Balloon Flight

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Jun 7, 2008
Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Birthday



Charles Rennie Mackintosh was a Scottish architect, designer, water colourist and artist. His artistic approach had much in common with European Symbolism.

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Jun 29, 2008
European Football Championship Winner 2008 - Spain

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Jul 3, 2008
Turkish Oil Wrestling 2008

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Jul 28, 2008
Beatrix Potter's Birthday





Helen Beatrix Potter was an English writer, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist; she was best known for her children's books featuring animals, such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

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Nov 20, 2013
Children's Day 2013 [Multiple Countries]

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Dec 12, 2013
Kenya Independence Day 2013

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Dec 25, 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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Jan 31, 2014
Chinese New Year 2014

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Jan 31, 2014
Lunar New Year 2014 - Vietnam

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Feb 19, 2014
Gabriele Münter's 137th Birthday





Gabriele Münter was a German expressionist painter who was at the forefront of the Munich avant-garde in the early 20th century. She studied and lived with the painter Wassily Kandinsky and was a founding member of the expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter.

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Mar 4, 2014
Carnival 2014

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March 20, 2014
First Day of Spring 2014



http://www.google.com/doodles/first-day-of-spring-2014 [animated]

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Mar 21, 2014
Ayrton Senna's 54th Birthday




Ayrton Senna da Silva; was a Brazilian racing driver who won the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in 1988, 1990 and 1991. Senna is one of three Formula One drivers from Brazil to win the World Championship and won 41 Grands Prix and 65 pole positions, with the latter being the record until 2006. He died in an accident leading the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix driving for the Williams team.

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Apr 7, 2014
Victoria Ocampo's 124th Birthday [born 1890]




Victoria Ocampo was an Argentine writer and intellectual, described by Jorge Luis Borges as La mujer más argentina ["The quintessential Argentine woman"]. Best known as an advocate for others and as publisher of the literary magazine Sur, she was also a writer and critic in her own right and one of the most prominent South American women of her time.

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Apr 23, 2014
Pixinguinha's 117th Birthday [born 1897]





Alfredo da Rocha Viana Filho, known as Pixinguinha was a Brazilian composer, arranger, flautist and saxophonist born in Rio de Janeiro. Pixinguinha is considered one of the greatest Brazilian composers of popular music, particularly within the genre of music known as choro. By integrating the music of the older choro composers of the 19th century with contemporary jazz-like harmonies, Afro-Brazilian rhythms, and sophisticated arrangements, he introduced choro to a new audience and helped to popularize it as a uniquely Brazilian genre. He was also one of the first Brazilian musicians and composers to take advantage of the new professional opportunities offered to musicians by the new technologies of radio broadcasting and studio recording. Pixinguinha composed dozens of choros, including some of the best-known works in the genre such as "Carinhoso", "Glória", "Lamento" and "Um a Zero".

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Apr 26, 2014
King's Day 2014

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Apr 27, 2014
South Africa Freedom Day





Freedom Day is a public holiday in South Africa celebrated on 27 April. It celebrates freedom and commemorates the first post-apartheid elections held on that day in 1994. The elections were the first non-racial national elections where everyone of voting age of over 18 from any race group, including foreign citizens permanently resident in South Africa, were allowed to vote.

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May 17, 2014
Norway's 200th Year of Independence

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Mar 20, 2014
First Day of Fall 2014 [Southern Hemisphere]



http://www.google.com/doodles/first-day-of-fall-2014 [animated]