Google doodles

[9A]

15 August 2022

India Independence Day 2022



Today’s Doodle, illustrated by Kerala-based guest artist Neethi, celebrates India’s 75th Independence Day. On this day in 1947, India officially became a democratic country—ending nearly two hundred years of British rule.

The lengthy struggle for freedom resulted in the birth of the largest democracy in the world. Heroic freedom fighters, such as Mahatma Gandhi, led the country’s independence movement through civil disobedience and nonviolent protests. On August 15, 1947, the Indian national flag was raised for the first time at the Red Fort in Delhi.

The biggest annual celebration takes place at the Red Fort in Delhi, where the Prime Minister raises the saffron, white and green national flag in synchronization with a 21-gun salute. After the Prime Minister delivers his televised speech, a patriotic parade honors members of the Indian armed forces and police.

People also celebrate by flying kites—a longstanding symbol of independence. Indian revolutionaries once flew kites with slogans to protest British rule. Since then, recreational and competitive kite flying have become one of Independence Day’s most popular traditions. Indians also commemorate the day by spending time with loved ones and hosting cultural programmes in neighborhoods and schools.

[9A]

18 December 2022

Celebrating Doris Pilkington Garimara




Today’s Doodle celebrates Doris Pilkington Garimara [born Nugi Garimara] who was an award-winning Martu author. Doris’ work recounts the experiences of the Stolen Generations and their reconnection with Indigenous Australian culture and identity. On this day in 2004, Doris Pilkington Garimara received a Western Australian State Living Treasure award for her writing, which has enriched Australian arts and culture.

The Doodle artwork was illustrated by Warumungu/Wombaya guest artist Jessica Johnson who lives and works on Gadigal land.

Doris’s most renowned book, Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence, details her mother Molly’s remarkable escape from Moore River Settlement. Moore River Settlement was a camp for Indigenous people that were forcibly removed from their families as a part of assimilation policies. In 1931, 14-year-old Molly and her two young family members spent nine weeks trekking 1,000 miles of harsh desert to escape. They traveled along a fence that stretched across Western Australia, knowing that their hometown, Jigalong, was on the northern end of the fence. The book concludes with Molly’s return home. But she’d have to make the same journey years later when her family was forcibly taken to the Moore River Settlement once again.

Doris Pilkington was born Nugi Garimara on July 1, 1937, in Western Australia. In her book Under the Wintamarra Tree, she wrote about her experience dealing with cultural erasure when she and her baby sister Annabelle were forced to accompany their mother to the camp. When Molly made the second long trek home with 18-month-old Annabelle, she had to leave four-year-old Doris behind as she couldn’t carry both daughters. At Moore River Settlement, Doris slept in rooms with barred windows, learned to feel ashamed of her culture, and received punishment for speaking her native language, Mardudjara. Those who tried to escape were held in solitary confinement, and Doris wouldn’t get a chance to see her mother again until age 25.

After years of unlearning the shame around her culture, Doris took ownership of her birth name and began speaking and writing in Mardudjara. Today, her stories inspire Indigenous Australian people to reconnect with their stolen heritage.

Thank you for sharing your people’s story with the world and encouraging a reclamation of culture, Doris Pilkington Garimara.

[9A]

18 December 2011

Christoffer Polhem's 350th Birthday



Christopher Polhammar [better known as Christopher Polhem], which he took after his ennoblement in 1716, was a Swedish scientist, inventor and industrialist. He made significant contributions to the economic and industrial development of Sweden, particularly mining. He was ennobled by King Charles XII of Sweden for his contributions to Swedish technological development.

[9A]

5 February 2019

Lunar New Year 2019 [South Korea]



Today is the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar, a major holiday celebrated throughout most of Asia. Also referred to as the Spring Festival or Chinese New Year, this holiday celebrates ancient traditions and ancestors as well as good times ahead.

This year marks the transition from the Year of the Dog to the Year of the Pig, the last animal in the cycle of 12 that represent each year in the shēngxiào, or Chinese zodiac. Pigs are considered a sign of prosperity in Asian culture, and those born in the year of the Pig are said to be sincere, good-natured, and honest.

Today’s Doodle also celebrates the ancient tradition of shadow puppetry, which also has a special place in the festivities. This year, people all over the world can Celebrate Lunar New Year and the ancient storytelling art of shadow puppetry with Shadow Art. Users can form one of the twelve zodiac animal hand gestures in front of their camera and the AI system, built with Tensorflow, will play a short clip matching the shadow puppet that’s been made.

In South Korea, the holiday is also known as soll. Traditional commemorations include visits to pay respect to family members and a meal of dduk gook or rice cake soup. New Year’s wishes are sometimes written on kites and then flown in the sky.

Happy Lunar New Year!

[9A]

6 February 2022

Waitangi Day 2022



In honor of Waitangi Day, a day that recognises the 1840 signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi [The Treaty of Waitangi] in Aotearoa New Zealand, today’s Doodle features the harakeke plant in celebration of the island nation’s unique native flora.

The common flax, also known as harakeke in te reo Māori, is one of New Zealand’s most ancient endemic plant species and one of its most revered. Its tall, green blades of flax leaves and vibrant flowers provide both shelter and abundant food for New Zealand’s wildlife community, which include tūī [birds with a unique white throat] and korimako [bellbirds].

Māori regard harakeke as a crucial fiber plant for raranga, the art of flax weaving. It is used to create everything from baskets to floor mats—even raincoats can be created by combining the harakeke’s hard outer layers together with its soft inner fibers. Māori believe these different layers symbolize the family lineage—the outer layer represents the grandparents, while the inner layer represents the parents wrapped around the innermost new shoots symbolizing the children who all previous generations protect.

Ngā mihi o te wā Aotearoa [acknowledgements of the time] New Zealand.

[9A]

6 February 2021

Waitangi Day 2021



On this day in 1840, Māori chiefs joined together with representatives of the British Crown to sign the Te Tiriti o Waitangi [Treaty of Waitangi], an agreement intended to bring unity to Aotearoa New Zealand. Today’s Doodle recognizes the anniversary of this historic treaty signing, now acknowledged annually as Waitangi Day.

On the centennial anniversary of the treaty’s signing, the Māori tribes contributed their unique carving styles to build Te Whare Rūnanga [the House of Assembly], the meeting house depicted in today’s Doodle artwork. The distinct carvings and intricate tukutuku panels in the Whare design represent Māori throughout Aotearoa as it brings together the stories and styles of all Iwi [tribes], showcasing a unique gallery of Māori art, as well as an example of Māori social and cultural life.

Now recognized as one of the nation’s most significant cultural heritage sites, Te Whare Rūnanga stands as a place to bring people together for important hui [meetings] and represents the unification of Māori and all New Zealanders. At dawn today, a ceremony inside Te Whare Rūnanga kicks off New Zealand’s annual Waitangi Festival, a vibrant celebration that includes Māori cultural performances and more.

Happy Waitangi Day, New Zealand!

[9A]

6 February 2020

Waitangi Day 2020




Today’s Doodle celebrates New Zealand’s Waitangi Day, a recognition of the signing of the nation’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi, on this day in 1840. To commemorate the country’s rich collection of bird fauna, the artwork depicts three of the nation’s endemic birds: the iconic flightless Kiwi in the centre, with the Tūī and the Kererū on either side.

The islands of New Zealand are home to around 168 different native birds, and over half of these species cannot be found anywhere else in the world. With the Tūī, prized by the Māori people for their imitation skills using its two voice boxes, the Kererū [whose unique flying noises are a distinctive sound in New Zealand’s bush] and the Kiwi [the world’s only bird with nostrils at the end of their long bill] New Zealand’s avian community has developed unique characteristics from evolving on the isolated South Pacific island.

Look up into the sky, or down to the ground, and enjoy these wonders of biodiversity.

Happy Waitangi Day, New Zealand!

[9A]

20 December 2022

Gonzalo Rojas' 106th birthday



Today’s Doodle celebrates the 106th birthday of Gonzalo Rojas, a Chilean poet, diplomat, and teacher who won the Chilean National Prize for Literature in 1992. He wrote and published more than 40 collections of poetry throughout his career, often focusing on melodic words that sound pleasing to the ear.

Rojas was born in Lebu, Chile on this day in 1916. He attended boarding school on scholarship and eventually studied law and literature at the University of Chile in Santiago. While working on his first poetry volume, Rojas also taught literacy to miners in the Atacama desert. During this time, he also founded a literary journal called Antárctica and served as its editor.

The publication of his first collection, La miseria del hombre [The Misery of Man], in 1948, won him international recognition as a poet. Rojas published countless more collections like Contra la muerte [Against Death, 1964], Oscuro [Darkness, 1977], and Del relámpago [Of Lightning, 1981] throughout his seven-decade career.

He also worked as a lecturer and administrator at the University of Concepción, organizing seminars and conferences during the height of Latin American literature in the 1960s. In the early 1970s, Rojas served as a diplomatic ambassador until political tensions led to his exile. From there, he traveled to universities in Germany, Spain, the United States and more to teach Spanish literature.

A Guggenheim scholarship allowed Rojas to return to Chile in 1979. He settled in the city of Chillán, where he continued publishing celebrated works of poetry. He went on to win the Chilean National Prize for Literature [Chile’s highest national award for writers], the Miguel de Cervantes Prize of Spain, the Octavio Paz Prize of Mexico and the José Hernandez Prize of Argentina in his later years.

[9A]

20 December 2020

Remembering Sudan, the last male northern white rhino





Today’s Doodle remembers the last surviving male northern white rhinoceros, Sudan, who was known as an affectionate “gentle giant.” On this day in 2009, Sudan and three other northern white rhinos arrived at their new home in Ol Pejeta Conservancy, a wildlife sanctuary in Kenya. Sudan, who passed away in 2018 at the age of 45 [the equivalent of 90 in human years], serves as a cherished symbol of ongoing rhino conservation efforts and a stark reminder of the danger of extinction that so many species face today.

Sudan was born in Shambe, in what is today, South Sudan in 1973 and is believed to be the last northern white rhino born in the wild. In 1976, he was taken to Dvůr Králové Zoo in then Czechoslovakia, where he grew to be 6 feet tall and a whopping 5,000 lbs [roughly the weight of a midsize car] and fathered two daughters.

In 2009, after the northern white rhino was declared extinct in the wild, four rhinos including Sudan, his daughter Najin, and his granddaughter Fatu were transferred back to their native African habitat. Conservationists hoped that the natural Kenyan environment of the Ol Pejeta Conservancy would encourage breeding among the rhinos, but within several years, veterinarians came to the conclusion that natural reproduction would most likely not be possible.

Yet there is still hope, as scientists work to develop in vitro fertilization techniques to save the subspecies from the brink of extinction. For now, Sudan’s legacy rests with Najin and Fatu, the world’s final two northern white rhinoceros.

[9A]

12 April 2022

Montserrat Caballé's 89th birthday




Montserrat “La Superba“ Caballé was known to have a personality that was larger-than-life—but it was the opera star’s voice that brought audiences to their feet. From her 1965 American debut at Carnegie Hall, Montserrat Caballé skyrocketed to international opera stardom and was celebrated for her distinctive bel canto vocal technique.

Born on this day in 1933 in Barcelona, Spain, much of Caballé’s youth was spent studying music and training her voice at the local liceo. After making her professional debut in Switzerland and early performances in Germany, Caballé went on to give more than 3,800 performances in over 80 roles on five continents.

Caballé’s ability to sing in multiple styles and keys opened doors to performing music ranging from Mozart to more traditional recital pieces all around the world. Her stellar career reached new heights in 1987, when she and close friend Freddie Mercury recorded “Barcelona”, the eventual anthem for the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games.

Caballé received five Grammy nominations during her career, winning the award in 1968 for Best Classical Vocal Performance. She also established Fundació Montserrat Caballé—an organization to support young talent in Barcelona—and served as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.

Happy 89th Birthday, La Superba. Your legacy sings on.

Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballé - Barcelona
[Original David Mallet Video 1987 Remastered]

[9A]

12 April 2019

100th Anniversary of Bauhaus





Both a school for the arts and a school of thought, the Bauhaus was founded by architect Walter Gropius exactly 100 years ago in Weimar, Germany, gathering many of Europe’s most brilliant artists and designers with the aim of training a new generation of creatives to reinvent the world. Today’s animated Doodle celebrates the legacy of this institution and the worldwide movement it began, which transformed the arts by applying the principle “form follows function.”

Gropius envisioned the Bauhaus—whose name means “house of building”—as a merger of craftsmanship, the “fine” arts, and modern technology. His iconic Bauhaus Building in Dessau was a forerunner of the influential “International Style,” but the impact of the Bauhaus’s ideas and practices reached far beyond architecture. Students of the Bauhaus received interdisciplinary instruction in carpentry, metal, pottery, stained glass, wall painting, weaving, graphics, and typography, learning to infuse even the simplest functional objects [like the ones seen in today's Doodle] with the highest artistic aspirations.

Steering away from luxury and toward industrial mass production, the Bauhaus attracted a stellar faculty including painters Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee, photographer and sculptor László Moholy-Nagy, graphic designer Herbert Bayer, industrial designer Marianne Brandt, and Marcel Breuer, whose Model B3 tubular chair changed furniture design forever.

Though the Bauhaus officially disbanded on August 10, 1933, its students returned to 29 countries, founding the New Bauhaus in Chicago, Black Mountain College in North Carolina, and White City in Tel Aviv. Bauhaus affiliates also took leadership positions at the Illinois Institute of Technology, the Harvard School of Architecture, and the Museum of Modern Art. Through all of these institutions, and the work created in their spirit, the ideas of the Bauhaus live on.

Happy 100th anniversary, Bauhaus!

[9A]

9 May 2017

Ferdinand Monoyer’s 181st birthday




Ferdinand Monoyer, born on this date in 1836, rose to prominence as one of France's most famous ophthalmologists. He developed the diopter, the unit of measurement for vision that's still used today. The diopter measures the distance you'd have to be from text to read it. Most notably, Monoyer devised an eye chart where every row represents a different diopter, from smallest to largest.

Monoyer was known to change the font of a particular letter if it didn't suit him; after all, if you're going to judge a person's vision by it, that letter had better be as legible as possible! If you look closely at today's Doodle, you might be able to spot a tribute to another of Monoyer's signatures: his name, hidden in the chart.

[9A]

17 February 2022

Dr Michiaki Takahashi's 94th birthday







Today’s Doodle, illustrated by Tokyo, Japan-based guest artist Tatsuro Kiuchi, celebrates Japanese virologist Dr. Michiaki Takahashi, who developed the first vaccine against chickenpox. Takahashi’s vaccine has since been administered to millions of children around the world as an effective measure to prevent severe cases of the contagious viral disease and its transmission.

Michiaki Takahashi was born on this day in 1928 in Osaka, Japan. He earned his medical degree from Osaka University and joined the Research Institute for Microbial Disease, Osaka University in 1959. After studying measles and polio viruses, Dr Takahashi accepted a research fellowship in 1963 at Baylor College in the United States. It was during this time that his son developed a serious bout of chickenpox, leading him to turn his expertise toward combating the highly transmissible illness.

Dr.Takahashi returned to Japan in 1965 and began culturing live but weakened chickenpox viruses in animal and human tissue. After just five short years of development, it was ready for clinical trials. In 1974, Dr. Takahashi had developed the first vaccine targeting the varicella virus that causes chickenpox. It was subsequently subjected to rigorous research with immunosuppressed patients and was proven to be extremely effective. In 1986, the Research Foundation for Microbial Diseases, Osaka University began the rollout in Japan as the only varicella vaccine approved by the World Health Organization.

Dr.Takahashi’s lifesaving vaccine was soon utilized in over 80 countries. In 1994, he was appointed the director of Osaka University’s Microbial Disease Study Group—a position he held until his retirement. Thanks to his innovations, millions of cases of chickenpox are prevented each year.

[9A]

19 Feb 2022

Dina Di's 46th birthday




Today’s Doodle celebrates the 46th birthday of rapper and songwriter Viviane Lopes Maties—better known by her alias Dina Di—the lead MC of the all-women hip-hop collective Visão de Rua [Street View]. She is widely considered to be one of the first women hip-hop and gangsta rap artists to achieve commercial success in Brazil.

Dina Di was born on this day in 1976 in Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, and endured a difficult childhood. Though a guitarist at first, Dina Di picked up the mic in her teens and focused her energy on writing rhymes that captured her struggles and challenged the entrenched social system.

In 1994, Dina Di led Visão de Rua alongside fellow artists Tum and DJ OG. Together, the revolutionary group released their first single, “Confidência de uma conviceira” [Confidence of a Convict]. Having served time behind bars, Dina Di used the song to share the harsh realities of the women’s prison system. She visited jails to share her music with incarcerated women to inspire positive transformation and give those detained hope for a brighter future.

Dressing in baggy clothes so people focused on her music rather than her gender, Dina Di never stopped exhibiting her power of raw lyrical storytelling to combat social injustice, from sexism in the music industry to the beauty and behavioral standards imposed on women. With Dina Di, Visão de Rua won Brazilian hip-hop’s prestigious Hutúz Awards for best female rap group in both 2000 and 2001, securing her title as the “Queen of National Rap.”

Today, women MCs in Brazilian hip-hop thrive and continue to fuel the movement of women’s empowerment. Their acclaim is intertwined with a social movement built by women such as Dina Di.

[9A]

January 14, 2021

Justicia Espada Acuña's 128th Birthday






Today’s Doodle celebrates Chilean engineer Justicia Espada Acuña, one of the first female engineers in Chile and South America. A symbol of women’s progress in Latin America, Acuña forged a path for generations of women to pursue careers in engineering.

Justicia Espada Acuña Mena was born in the Chilean capital of Santiago on this day in 1893. Her father was a civil builder who encouraged Acuña and her seven siblings to follow their dreams and challenge unjust societal norms. After high school, she studied mathematics, but she soon took an interest in engineering instead. In 1912, she became the first woman to join the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Chile, and she made history when she graduated with a degree in civil engineering seven years later.

The next year, Acuña began her trailblazing career as a calculator for the State Railways’ Department of Roads and Works [Empresa de los Ferrocarriles del Estado]. Excluding a break to raise her seven children, she worked for the company until her retirement in 1954.

To honor her legacy, the College of Engineers of Chile inducted Acuña into its Gallery of Illustrious Engineers in 1981, and around a decade later the Institute of Engineers created an award in her name for outstanding female engineers. In addition, in 2018 the Faculty of Physical Science and Mathematics of the University of Chile renamed its central tower after Acuña to memorialize the faculty’s first female student.

Happy birthday, Justicia Espada Acuña, and thank you for helping engineer a brighter future for women in science.

[9A]

Feb 3, 2018

Payom Sinawat’s 109th Birthday





Today we celebrate renowned textile artist Payom Sinawat, who carried the traditional patterns of Isaan, a region in northeast Thailand, into the present day. Born in 1909 in Thailand’s Sisaket Province, Sinawat worked in Isaan arts and crafts for over 60 years. As she handcrafted silk for the Queen, Sinawat played a crucial role in popularizing traditional textile arts.

One of the Isaan cloths that she handcrafted in traditional looms, and which partly inspired today’s Doodle, is named khit. Khit weaving tends to use certain colors, like red, purple, and dark green, to layer contrasting geometric patterns over a light background.

With an emphasis on quality, Sinawat mixed old and new materials to modernize and conserve traditional textile art. In 1987, she received the title of Thailand National Artist for her excellent craftsmanship, a title annually bestowed upon notable Thai artists. Through sharing her craft with society, she ensured that northeastern Thai weaving techniques and their resulting beautiful silks are conserved for generations to come.

[9A]

Nov 8, 2010

Discovery of X-rays






The discovery of x-rays is a fascinating story. It’s a moment that had a sudden and profound impact, but it took place quietly, in secret and by accident, in the laboratory of one inquisitive scientist. It’s a story about a naturally curious person who was paying attention to the right things at the right time. And like any good story about curiosity, it begins with an experiment.

On November 8, 1895, physicist Wilhelm Röntgen was testing the effects of sending electrical currents through glass vacuum-filled bulbs called cathode ray tubes. During one of his tests, Röntgen noticed that a screen on the other side of his lab began to glow whenever he sent electricity through the tube, even when the tube was fully covered with an opaque piece of cardboard.

Röntgen’s theory was that the tube was emitting an unknown kind of ray. He tried blocking the ray with different materials, but it seemed to pass through solid matter untouched. Then, by accident, he moved his hand through its path, and the shadows of his own bones were projected onto the screen.

For seven weeks, he worked in secret. He x-rayed his wife’s hand, wearing her wedding ring. When his wife saw the first-ever radiographic image, she said, “I have seen my death!”

In December of 1895, he published his findings. Röntgen gave his discovery the temporary name “X-ray,” for the mathematical term for an unknown quantity [[“x”). Within weeks, the first clinical x-rays were taking place all over the world. Röntgen never patented his discovery, believing it should be freely available. In 1901, Röntgen received the first Nobel Prize in Physics.

The x-ray gave us a new way of observing the world and ourselves. We could see right down to our bones, and even now, more than a century later, those eerie black and white images are still strange and powerful.

[9A]

Nov 2, 2012

Odysseas Elitis' 101st Birthday






Odysseas Elytis [pen name of Odysseas Alepoudellis] was a Greek poet, essayist and translator, regarded as a major exponent of romantic modernism in Greece and the world. He is one of the most praised poets of the second half of the twentieth century, with his Axion Esti "regarded as a monument of contemporary poetry". In 1979, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

[9A]

October 22, 2021

Celebrating Theodor Wonja Michael




Today’s Doodle celebrates Afro-German author, journalist, actor, government official, and social activist Theodor Wonja Michael, who survived a German labor camp to become the nation’s first Black federal civil service officer. Dedicated throughout his wide-ranging career to the struggle against racism, he lived to become one of the oldest remaining representatives of a historic generation of Black German people. On this day in 2013, Michael published his emotive memoir “Black German: An Afro-German Life in the Twentieth Century.”

In 1925, Theodor Wonja Michael was born on January 15 in Berlin, Germany to a father of Cameroonian birth and a native German mother. After elementary school, he was denied occupational training due to Germany’s discriminatory Nuremberg Laws. He pursued acting instead, but at 18 he was sent to work in a forced labor camp.

After the end of World War II, Michael went on to earn a master’s degree in political science. He pursued a career in journalism and founded and edited the journal “Afrika-Bulletin.” In 1971, he agreed to contribute his expertise of African issues to West Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, where he worked as a secret agent and retired as a director in 1987. Initially hesitant to join, Michael used his government service to fight discrimination from within and open doors for other Black Germans. He eventually returned to acting and became one of Germany’s most renowned Shakespearean stage actors.

In honor of his role as a representative of the Black German community, Michael became the first recipient of the nation’s Black History Month Award in 2009.

Thank you, Theodor Wonja Michael! Your story continues to inspire new generations to stand firm in the fight against racial prejudice.

[9A]

April 10, 2019

First Image of a Black Hole




A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing — no particles or even electromagnetic radiation such as light — can escape from it.

Black holes of stellar mass form when very massive stars collapse at the end of their life cycle. After a black hole has formed, it can continue to grow by absorbing mass from its surroundings. By absorbing other stars and merging with other black holes, supermassive black holes of millions of solar masses may form. There is consensus that supermassive black holes exist in the centers of most galaxies

[9A]

January 26, 2017

Australia Day 2017




Today’s Doodle celebrates Australia's most awe-inspiring feature: its big, blue backyard and treasured natural World Heritage Site: the Great Barrier Reef.

This vast underwater world is home to a whole host of protected and majestic creatures, including the green turtle, pipefish, barramundi cod, potato cod, maori wrasse, giant clam, and staghorn coral, to name a few. Made up of over 2,900 individual reefs, the earth’s largest coral reef system can be seen from space, and is our planet’s single largest structure made up of living organisms.

The reef is tightly woven into the culture and spirituality of island locals who cherished it long before it became a popular tourist destination. A large part of the reef is now under protection in an effort to preserve the shrinking ecosystem impacted by heavy tourism.

[9A]

October 14, 2019

Joseph Plateau’s 218th Birthday





Today’s Doodle celebrates the Belgian physicist Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau, whose research on visual perception inspired him to invent a device he called the phénakistiscope, which led to the birth of cinema by creating the illusion of a moving image. Inspired by the mesmerizing animated discs, the animated Doodle art was made to reflect Plateau’s style, with different imagery and themes in them on different device platforms.

Born in Brussels on this day in 1801, Plateau was the son of an accomplished artist who specialized in painting flowers. After studying law, young Plateau became one of the best-known Belgian scientists of the nineteenth century, remembered for his study of physiological optics, particularly the effect of light and color on the human retina.

Plateau’s doctoral dissertation detailed how images form on the retina, noting their exact duration, color, and intensity. Based on these conclusions, he was able to create a stroboscopic device in 1832, fitted with two discs that rotated in opposite directions. One disc was filled with small windows, evenly spaced in a circle, while the other had a series of pictures of a dancer. When both discs turned at exactly the right speed, the images seemed to merge, creating the illusion of a dancer in motion.

Though Plateau lost his vision later in life, he continued to have a productive career in science even after becoming blind, working as a professor of experimental physics at Ghent University with the help of colleagues that included his son Felix Plateau and his son-in-law Gustaaf Van der Mensbrugghe.

Happy Birthday, Joseph Plateau!

[9A]

October 24, 2016

Antoni van Leeuwenhoek’s 384th Birthday






Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, born today in 1632, saw a whole world in a drop of water. Considered the first microbiologist, van Leeuwenhoek designed single-lens microscopes to unlock the mysteries of everything from bits of cheese to complex insect eyes. In a letter to the Royal Society of London, van Leeuwenhoek marveled at what he had seen in a sample of water from a nearby lake: "little animals" that we know now as bacteria and other microbes.

In his rooms on the Market Square in Delft, Netherlands, van Leeuwenhoek was a DIY-er supreme. Like Galileo, he ground and polished his own lenses. Some of his lenses attained a magnification of more than 200 times, allowing him to examine capillaries, muscle fibers, and other wonders of the microscopic universe.

Doodler Gerben Steenks noted, "I chose to make it an animated Doodle to show the 'before and after' experience that Antoni van Leeuwenhoek had — looking through a microscope and seeing a surprising new world." Here's to celebrating a true visionary!

[9A]

May 25, 2019

Sudirman Arshad’s 65th Birthday






Today’s Doodle honors Sudirman Haji Arshad, the Malaysian singer, songwriter, author, visual artist, and actor known as “Sudirman” to his legions of fans. Born the youngest of seven children in Temerloh, Pahang, on this day in 1954, Sudirman worked as a journalist and an attorney before becoming one of the most popular performers in Asia, remembered for his piercing tenor voice and for staging one of the largest free concerts in Malaysian history.

Sudirman’s singing career surged after winning a contest on Bintang Radio Television Malaysia, and he went on to top the charts in Singapore, Brunei, and Indonesia. On April 15, 1986 he performed for a crowd of over 100,000 on Kuala Lumpur’s Chow Kit Road. Lifted above the audience by crane, Sudirman delivered a performance that delighted a crowd that included Malay, Chinese, and Indian fans.

At London’s Royal Albert Hall, Sudirman won acclaim at the Asian Popular Music Awards in 1989, singing his signature hit “A Thousand Million Smiles” as well as a rendition of “Send In The Clowns” with choreography that paid tribute to Charlie Chaplin. The performance helped to raise Sudirman’s international profile. He would go on to travel the world from Hawaii and Asia through the Middle East and Europe.

As he toured, signing autographs – even if he felt was a chore – was a responsibility he undertook willingly. “He would sign every autograph, never refuse anyone who wanted to take a picture with him, always have a warm welcoming smile and was always humble,” said his former manager, Daniel Dharanee Kannan.

Appointed a "Singing Ambassador" by the Malaysian Ministry of Tourism, Sudi expanded his audience by singing in Malay as well as English, Tamil, Tagalog, Korean, and a number of Chinese dialects. He was also known for his weekly television show, during which he would sometimes serenade a member of the audience while sketching their portrait.

He also appeared in the film Kami, about orphans living in Kuala Lumpur, and wrote the children’s book Taming Si Budak Pintar. With 14 albums to his credit, Sudirman received the Malaysian music industry’s Anugerah Industri Muzik award. A street was named after him in his hometown and the Sudirman Scholarship Fund was established to support performing artists.

Selamat Hari lahir, Sudirman Haji Arshad!

[9A]

8 February 2023

Celebrating Mama Cax



In honor of Black History Month, today's Doodle celebrates Haitian American model and disability rights advocate Mama Cax. Illustrated by Brooklyn-based guest artist Lyne Lucien, Mama Cax is best known for shattering expectations around beauty. The model and advocate proudly strutted down catwalks on her prosthetic leg, often designed with colors and patterns. On this day in 2019, Mama Cax made her debut on a runway at New York Fashion Week.

Mama Cax was born Cacsmy Brutus on November 20, 1989, in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. At age 14, she was diagnosed with bone and lung cancer. As a result of her cancer, she underwent an unsuccessful hip replacement surgery at age 16 which led to the amputation of her right leg. At first, Mama Cax was depressed and struggled to accept herself with a prosthetic leg, as she wanted it to look realistic and match her skin tone.

As time passed, Mama Cax began accepting and loving her new body. She started wearing stylish prosthetic covers with pride incorporating it as part of her personal style. She also began expressing her love for fashion and style with colorful outfits, hair dyes, and bold makeup. During this time of embracing her disability, Cax also leaned into her athleticism and learned to handcycle — she went on to complete the New York City Marathon!

As the body positivity movement grew, Mama Cax noticed that Black women and women with disabilities were underrepresented in social media. She began posting regularly and advocating for inclusivity in fashion and using social media to discuss her body insecurities. She officially broke into the fashion industry as a model in an advertising campaign in 2017 and was signed by Jag Models shortly after. In 2018, she landed a Teen Vogue cover, and the following year, Mama Cax walked in both the February and October New York Fashion Weeks.

Mama Cax’s life was tragically cut short by medical complications in 2019. The model and activist is remembered for expanding the image of what people with disabilities should be or look like. Today’s vibrant Doodle artwork is a reflection of her bright life. The artwork highlights the many facets of her identity including her Haitian heritage, her NYC hometown, and her fashion career with her prosthetic incorporated into the look.

Thank you for being a positive role model and advocating for inclusion in the fashion and beauty world, Mama Cax.

[9A]

September 16, 2019

B.B. King’s 94th Birthday





Today’s Doodle, illustrated by Little Rock-based guest artist Steve Spencer and animated by Brooklyn-based guest animator Nayeli Lavanderos, celebrates B.B. King—the iconic “King of the Blues” who brought blues music from cotton fields and street corners to grand halls and arenas across the world.

Born on this day in 1925 on a Mississippi Delta plantation near Berclair, Mississippi, Riley B. King was a sharecropper’s son whose soulful, piercing guitar solos became recognizable with a single note. Often imitated but never duplicated, B.B. King became a blueprint for many of the world’s biggest rock stars who followed. “I wish I could just do like B. B. King,” said John Lennon of The Beatles. “If you would put me with B. B. King, I would feel real silly.”

Raised singing gospel music in church, King performed on street corners before hitchhiking to Memphis and landing a job on the air at radio station WDIA. There, locals began calling him “Beale Street Blues Boy,” later shortened to “Bee Bee” and finally “B.B.”

He began recording in 1949 and never looked back after his first hit, “Three O’Clock Blues.” Records like “The Thrill is Gone” and “Every Day I Have the Blues” have become classics of the genre.

King opened for the Rolling Stones on tour and became the first internationally acclaimed blues artist, winning 15 Grammys, being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, receiving honorary doctorates from assorted universities, and performing at the White House. Embodying the traveling bluesman, King was also known for averaging more than 300 shows a year throughout various points in his career.

In 1949, King ran inside a burning nightclub to save a guitar, risking his own life for his beloved instrument. The fire had been caused by two men fighting over a woman named Lucille, and from that day forward, King referred to all his guitars by that name.

“When I sing, I play in my mind,” he once said. “The minute I stop singing orally, I start to sing by playing Lucille.”

[9A]

9 April 2022

Toots Thielemans' 100th birthday






A small instrument delivered soulful sounds when it was in the hands of Belgian musician and composer Toots Thielemans. Known for his chromatic harmonica skills, he made a name for himself in the genre of jazz. He also played guitar and professionally whistled his way up international charts throughout his musical career. Today’s Doodle—illustrated by guest artist Melissa Crowton—hits all the right notes by celebrating Toots Thielemans’ contributions to the jazz world on what would be his 100th birthday.

Toots picked up the accordion at three years old and quickly found himself entertaining people at an early age. He would eventually grow up and become a performing musician at his parents’ cafe. As a teenager, he got his hands on a harmonica, but it wasn’t until he heard Louis Armstrong on record that he discovered jazz. In the early 1940s, he picked up the guitar and began performing and touring with other talented musicians. Playing next to jazz and blues figures like Quincy Jones, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder and Frank Sinatra, Toots made himself a staple on radio and television. He recorded 21 records, was featured in Old Spice and Firestone commercials as well as motion-picture soundtracks. One of his most recognizable harmonica solos was for the theme song on PBS-TV’s Sesame Street.

Toots is widely considered an unrivaled harmonica player and a true Jazz Master. He continued recording with other artists and performing publicly late into his life. After his passing, many collected and showcased his records, ticket stubs and autographs while museums displayed donated items and instruments from his personal collection.

Happy birthday, Toots Thielemans!

[9A]

21 May 2019

Willem Einthoven’s 159th Birthday




Today’s Doodle celebrates the birth of Willem Einthoven, the Nobel Prize-winning Dutch physiologist who pioneered electrocardiography—a quick, painless, and effective method of studying the rhythms of the heart and diagnosing cardiovascular disease.

Born on the island of Java [now Indonesia] on this day in 1860, Einthoven grew up aspiring to follow in the footsteps of his father who had been both a doctor and military medical officer. By 1886 he had become a professor of physiology at the University of Leiden, focusing on optics, respiration, and the heart.

In 1889, Einthoven attended the First International Congress of Physiologists, where he watched a demonstration of a device known as the “Lippmann capillary electrometer” recording the electrical activity of the human heart. After analyzing the results, Einthoven recognized the need for a more accurate device, and began work on his string galvanometer, based on the technology used to amplify signals along underwater cables.

Balancing a fine string of quartz coated in silver between the two poles of a magnet, Einthoven’s invention precisely measured variations in electrical current. In 1901 he announced the first version of the string galvanometer, and soon published the world’s first electrocardiogram or ECG, a printed record of a human heartbeat. Einthoven studied the ECG patterns, identifying five “deflections” of normal heart function, learning how to interpret deviations that signal circulatory problems and heart disease.

Einthoven’s groundbreaking research won him the 1924 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Today, ECG machines are still used in hospitals all over the world, and while the technology has evolved greatly, they still work according to the same basic principles and techniques developed by Einthoven, who is now remembered as the father of modern electrocardiography.

[9A]

25 April 2013

Ella Fitzgerald's 96th Birthday





My first encounter with Ella Fitzgerald’s music happened when I was about 12. My parents were hosting a party, and my dad had charged me with the task of burning a CD of jazzy music, suggesting songs by the Queen of Jazz herself. Having only heard her name through word-of-mouth, I sharpied the title “Elephants Gerald” onto the disc. Let’s just say my innocent mistake earned me a few embarrassing laughs.

Despite my early misunderstanding of Ella’s name, I have grown to adore her music. This is why I jumped at the chance to create today’s doodle!

Ms. Fitzgerald’s songs are soulful, jazzy, and create a very particular mood when played. I wanted to make sure that my doodle captured that essence. I chose to create the doodle out of cut paper because I knew that I could use this technique to imitate real stage-lighting and theatricality.

Some words from the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation's Executive Director

Never in my wildest, most fantastic dreams did I ever believe that I would work for Ella Fitzgerald. Me, working for the great First Lady of Song? Been doing it since Ella 1996.

How did I end up here? My husband Rich and I have been married since 1980. He’s a lawyer, and when we got married he was practicing business law for a small entertainment firm in L.A. One of the clients was Ella. The first time Rich took me back stage [at the Hollywood Bowl no less] to meet her, I thought I would just keel over and pass out but she was as nice, gracious and warm as my favorite aunt. If you walked into her lovely Beverly Hills home, you were greeted with a huge smile, a big hug and a sandwich.

When Ella died, Rich needed to hire an archivist, and I was the only one he knew. There we were, sitting around telling stories while surrounded by Grammy Awards, Gold Records, Downbeat Awards, Presidential medals and all the tangible items of a life well-sung. I pinched myself a lot.

The summer of 1996 was not an easy one. Ella had just passed away from complications of diabetes and my own mother was ill as well. I would spend mornings at Ella’s, doing archival work, and the afternoons down the street with my Mom. I swear she could hear me scream all the way down the road the day I discovered an original Picasso drawing that Ella had stuck in her bureau drawer. The treasures continued to emerge as I found Ella’s invitation to John F. Kennedy’s inauguration [she performed along with Frank Sinatra among others], a personalized Dodger’s jacket, her director’s chair from the Carol Burnett Show, and the gorgeous red suit and pill box hat she wore for her famous American Express ad [thanks, Annie Leibovitz. History in my hands. These items and more are now shared with the world as her archives now live at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington DC.

So here I am, all these years later, still working for Ella running the Charitable Foundation that she started. And having WAY too much fun.

Fran Morris Rosman, Executive Director, The Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation



LOUIS ARMSTRONG ELLA FITZGERALD
STOMPING AT THE SAVOY

[9A]

November 4, 2021

Charles K. Kao's 88th Birthday






Today’s Doodle celebrates the visionary Chinese-born, British-American physicist and educator Charles K. Kao, considered the father of fiber optics whose innovations revolutionized global communication and laid the groundwork for today’s high-speed internet.

Charles Kuen Kao was born on this day in 1933 in Shanghai, China. Drawn to intellectual work early in life with notable academic success, he went on to study electrical engineering in England. He supported his graduate studies as an engineer at Standard Telephones and Cables Ltd., where his colleagues invented the laser in 1960.

Shortly after earning his doctorate, Kao and his collaborator George Hockham published a groundbreaking paper in 1966 that proposed fibers fabricated with purified glass could carry a gigahertz [1 billion hertz] of information over long distances using lasers. Kao led the development of this revolutionary technology, and in 1977, the first telephone network carried live signals through optical fibers. By the 1980s, Kao was overseeing the implementation of fiber-optic networks worldwide.

was a dedicated educator in addition to being a trailblazing researcher. Beginning in 1987, he spent nearly a decade as Vice-Chancellor of The Chinese University of Hong Kong and founded Hong Kong’s Independent Schools Foundation. Kao’s landmark research in the 1960s earned him a joint Nobel Prize in Physics in 2009 and cleared the path for the over 900 million miles of fiber-optic cables that carry massive quantities of data across the globe today.

Happy birthday, Charles K. Kao—thank you for using every fiber of your being to make the world a more connected place!

[9A]

April 8, 2017

Mary Pickford’s 125th Birthday




Lights, camera, action! Today’s doodle honors the “Queen of the Movies,” Mary Pickford. An actress, a film director, and a producer, Mary Pickford proved that actors weren’t relegated to careers in front of the camera. She co-founded the film studio United Artists and was one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Before she became one of the most powerful women who has ever worked in Hollywood, she was “the girl with the curls,” and one of the most beloved stars of the silent film era. She appeared in as many as 50 films per year, and eventually negotiated wages that were equal to half of each of her films’ profits. She went on to demand full creative and financial control of her films, a feat still unheard of to this day.

She used her stardom to bring awareness to causes close to her heart. She sold Liberty Bonds during World War I, created the Motion Picture Relief Fund, and revolutionized the film industry by giving independent film producers a way to distribute their films outside the studio system. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress, for her role in Coquette [1929], and an honorary Academy Award for lifetime achievement in 1976.

Today, we pay tribute to Mary Pickford’s enterprising leadership on what would be her 125th birthday.

[9A]

Feb 14, 2011

Happy Valentine's Day from Google & Robert Indiana. Courtesy of the Morgan Art Foundation / ARS, NY






Robert Indiana [born Robert Clark; September 13, 1928 – May 19, 2018] was an American artist associated with the pop art movement. His "LOVE" print, first created for the Museum of Modern Art's Christmas card in 1965, was the basis for his 1970 Love sculpture and the widely distributed 1973 United States Postal Service "LOVE" stamp. He created works in media including paper [silk screen] and Cor-ten steel.

[9A]

12 Feb 2011

Naomi Uemura's 70th Birthday









Naomi Uemura was a Japanese adventurer who was known particularly for his solo exploits. For example, he was the first person to reach the North Pole solo, the first person to raft the Amazon solo, and the first person to climb Denali solo. He disappeared a day after his 43rd birthday while attempting to climb Denali in the winter.

[9A]

17 February 2014

Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson's 150th Birthday [born 1864]





Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author. He wrote many ballads and poems about Australian life, focusing particularly on the rural and outback areas, including the district around Binalong, New South Wales, where he spent much of his childhood. Paterson's more notable poems include "Clancy of the Overflow" [1889], "The Man from Snowy River" [1890] and "Waltzing Matilda" [1895́], regarded widely as Australia's unofficial national anthem.

[9A]

17 October 2018

Chiquinha Gonzaga’s 171st Birthday





Born on this day in Rio de Janeiro in, 1847, Francisca Edwiges Neves Gonzaga [famously known as Chiquinha Gonzaga] showed an affinity for music from childhood. Playing the piano by age 11, she studied music with the maestro Elias Álvares Lobo. When she was 16, her parents insisted she enter an arranged marriage, which ended after her husband insisted she devote herself either to him or to music. At a time when independent women faced major social pressure, Gonzaga sacrificed everything to follow her musical ambitions. She would go on to become the first female conductor in South America and one of the most important figures in Brazilian music history.

For a woman to make a living as a professional musician in nineteenth-century Brazil was unheard of, but Gonzaga persisted, composing 77 operettas and more than 2,000 songs. “Atraente,” published in 1881, may be her best-loved composition, ushering in a sound that would come to be known as “choro.” With her peerless piano skills and gift for improvisation, Gonzaga pioneered this upbeat blend of jazz, waltz, polka, and Afro-Brazilian beats.

On January 17, 1885, Gonzaga made her debut as a conductor with her piece, “Palhares Ribeiro, A Corte na Roça.” Despite the popularity of her music, Gonzaga faced resistance as a woman in a male-dominated business. Often performing with a group headed by her close friend, the flutist Joaquim Antônio da Silva Callado Jr., and including her son João Gualberto on clarinet, Gonzaga managed to thrive in the face of adversity, inspiring others to follow in her footsteps.

During the late 1880s Gonzaga threw her support behind the abolitionist movement, selling her sheet music to raise funds, she paid for the freedom of the enslaved musician Zé Flauta. Her 1899 Carnival march “O abre alas!” [Open Wings] was an homage to freedom. In 1917 she co-founded the artists’ rights society SBAT to ensure that songwriters received a fair share of income from their compositions.

Gonzaga’s legacy lives on as one of Brazil’s most celebrated musical legends. She broke down barriers and directly impacted the development of music in her homeland. Fittingly, Gonzaga’s birthday is now the official National Day of Brazilian Popular Music [Dia da Música Popular Brasileira].

Feliz aniversário Chiquinha Gonzaga!

[9A]

29 July 2019

Celebrating Chiune Sugihara




“There was no other way,” said Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara, who was stationed in Lithuania shortly before the outbreak of World War II. On this day in 1940, Sugihara began issuing transit visas to thousands of Jewish refugees, defying direct orders from his supervisors to help the refugees escape via Japan.

“I told the Ministry of Foreign Affairs it was a matter of humanity,” he recalled years later. “I did not care if I lost my job.”

Soon after Jewish families began lining up outside his official residence, pleading for documents to allow them safe passage via Japan to the Dutch island of Curacao, he sent three messages to Tokyo requesting permission, all of which was forcefully rejected. “Absolutely not to be issued any traveler not holding firm end visa with guaranteed departure ex Japan,” read the cable from the foreign ministry. “No exceptions.”

After much soul-searching, Sugihara threw caution to the winds, writing thousands of visas night and day until “my fingers were calloused and every joint from my wrist to my shoulder ached.” His wife supported his risky decision, massaging his tired hands each night so he could keep going until the last minutes of his train leaving Lithuania, handing out visas to Jews at the platform.

Upon returning to Japan, Sugihara paid the price for disobeying orders. His promising foreign service career came to an end, and he struggled to support his family. He received little recognition for his sacrifice until one of the people he saved, now an Israeli diplomat, managed to find him in 1968. A tree was planted in his honor at the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, and Chiune Sugihara was declared "Righteous Among Nations." Memorials in Lithuania and Yaotsu, Japan pay tribute to Sugihara and his heroic endeavors that saved untold thousands of lives.

[9A]

29 July 2008

50th Anniversary of NASA




The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.

NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics [NACA], to give the U.S. space development effort a distinctly civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. NASA has since led most American space exploration, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968-1972 Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. NASA supports the International Space Station and oversees the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System for the crewed lunar Artemis program, Commercial Crew spacecraft, and the planned Lunar Gateway space station. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program, which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for uncrewed NASA launches.

NASA's science is focused on better understanding Earth through the Earth Observing System; advancing heliophysics through the efforts of the Science Mission Directorate's Heliophysics Research Program; exploring bodies throughout the Solar System with advanced robotic spacecraft such as New Horizons and planetary rovers such as Perseverance; and researching astrophysics topics, such as the Big Bang, through the James Webb Space Telescope, and the Great Observatories and associated programs.

[9A]

12 December 2022

Donald Pandiangan's 77th birthday





Today’s Doodle celebrates the 77th birthday of Donald Pandiangan, an Indonesian archer who coached the archery team that won the country its first Olympic medal in 1988. He won more than 20 gold medals for his mastery of the bow and arrow at the Southeast Asian Games [SEA Games], earning him the nickname the Robin Hood of Indonesia.

Pandiangan was born on this day in Sidikalang, North Sumatra in 1945. He dreamed of becoming an engineer, but financial restraints prevented him from finishing college. Pandiangan ended up working at a transport company, where he received a gift that would change the course of his life—an archery set.

Although he started at the late age of 25, Pandiangan fell in love with the sport and trained tirelessly. Three years later, he won his first gold medal at the 1973 Pekan Olahraga Nasional VIII [National Sports Week of Indonesia] in Surabaya. Four years later, he broke a world record in the 70m Recurve event at the 1977 PON IX in Jakarta.

Pandiangan won gold countless times between 1977 and 1987 at the SEA Games. In 1980, Pandiangan was at the peak of his career and nearly competed in the Summer Olympics in Moscow, but was unable to attend because Indonesia boycotted the event.

A few years later, he began coaching the women’s archery team for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. Lilies Handayani, Nurfitriyana Saiman, and Kusuma Wardhani went on to win the silver medal—the first ever in Indonesian history.

Happy 77th birthday, Donald Pandiangan!

[9A]

12 December 2012

50th Anniversary of Bonne Nuit les Petits






In 1962 Claude Laydu and his wife developed a puppet show for television, called Bonne nuit les petits [Good Night, Little Ones]. Five minutes long, it was shown nightly and its characters Nounours, Pimprenelle and Nicolas became known by generations of French children, as it was produced for more than a decade. Laydu performed the voice of the Sandman, who spoke the title each night. Laydu and his wife revived it in 1995 as Nounours and it ran for several years. There was associated development and marketing of numerous related books, records, videos and dolls.

[9A]

12 December 2022

Celebrating Mária Telkes



Today’s Doodle celebrates the life and innovative work of Dr. Mária Telkes, one of the first pioneers of solar energy. She believed the power of the sun could change human lives, and she was right! Dr. Telkes was the first to receive The Society of Women Engineers Achievement Award on this day in 1952.

Dr. Telkes was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1900 and studied physical chemistry at the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest. She graduated with a B.A. in 1920 and received her PhD in 1924. The following year, she moved to the United States and accepted a position as a biophysicist. In 1937, she became a U.S. citizen.

Dr. Telkes continued her career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT] as a member of the Solar Energy Committee. During World War II, she was called upon by the U.S. government to help develop a solar distiller that converted seawater into fresh water. This life-saving invention was used by soldiers stationed in the Pacific theater.

After the war, Dr. Telkes returned to MIT as an associate research professor. She and her MIT colleagues were tasked with creating habitable solar-heated homes. Unfortunately, she proposed and developed a design that failed, and was removed from the committee, but she persisted.

In 1948, after securing private funding from philanthropists, she created the Dover Sun House in partnership with architect Eleanor Raymond. The solar-heated home was a success and the women were featured in the media, popularizing the term ‘solar energy’ among the public.

Dr. Telkes’ inspiring career was filled with success and innovation. She was commissioned by the Ford Foundation and created a solar oven design that’s still used today. She also helped research solar energy at prestigious institutions such as NYU, Princeton University, and the University of Delaware. Dr. Telkes earned more than 20 patents and worked as a consultant for many energy companies. It’s no wonder she’s remembered as The Sun Queen.

[9A]

12 December 2021

Celebrating Phở



Today’s Doodle, illustrated by Hanoi, Vietnam-based guest artist Lucia Pham, honors phở, Vietnam’s national dish that is served as an aromatic soup brimming with savory broth, soft rice noodles, fresh herbs, and thinly sliced meat. On this day in 2018, December 12 was selected as the official day to celebrate Vietnamese phở, in honor of the beloved culinary treasure and the cultural fusion it represents.

What makes phở distinct is a mindful cooking process to achieve multi-layered flavors and a clear broth. From ingredients like roasted ginger, fennel seed, star anise, and cinnamon for the simmered stock, the broth serves as the foundation for aromas and tastes for every palate.

While its exact origins are unknown, most historians think phở was born in northern Vietnam’s Nam Dinh province between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some believe that “phở" comes from the word phấn, a rice noodle dish. People started to use beef consommé to make an early predecessor to phở—a simple but very popular noodle soup called xao trau which consisted of buffalo meat cooked in broth and rice vermicelli.

Traditionally, phở is a breakfast dish sold in street food stalls but phở consumption has moved into everyday comfort food. Today, phở is eaten worldwide in countless variations such as phở trộn [dry phở], phở gà [chicken phở], phở cuốn [phở rolls] and many more. Everyone can agree that the noodle dish is a treasured element of Vietnamese heritage. Although current events have slowed the food markets, people are hopeful for their return where phở can be enjoyed as a shared, culinary moment in daily life again.

Here’s to a Vietnamese dish that’s phở-nomenal!

[9A]

15 Dec 2014

40th anniversary of the Cycleway programme





Cycling infrastructure is all infrastructure cyclists are allowed to use. Bikeways include bike paths, bike lanes, cycle tracks, rail trails and, where permitted, sidewalks. Roads used by motorists are also cycling infrastructure, except where cyclists are barred such as many freeways/motorways. It includes amenities such as bike racks for parking, shelters, service centers and specialized traffic signs and signals. The more cycling infrastructure, the more people get about by bicycle.

This fietspad [bicycle path] is in the Netherlands safely linking housing with decent street lights.

Ciclovía is a Spanish term that means "cycleway", either a permanent bike path or the temporary closing of certain streets to automobiles for cyclists and pedestrians, a practice sometimes called open streets.

The inspiration for Ciclovías is credited to Bogotá, Colombia, although the National Capital Commission in Canada's capital Ottawa already organised open streets for active transportation in 1970.

Good road design, road maintenance and traffic management can make cycling safer and more useful. Settlements with a dense network of interconnected streets tend to be places for getting around by bike. Their cycling networks can give people direct, fast, easy and convenient routes.

[9A]

15 December 2015

Chico Mendes’ 71st Birthday





Rubber tapping requires serious patience. You strip the bark, then wait — drip, drip, drip — as the liquid appears. Eventually, the waiting pays off, and the drops unite into a beautiful, valuable collection.

Chico Mendez’s life was similar. A second-generation tapper, he passed his days like most other workers: waiting. But inspiration struck — drip! — and he worked to unite his fellow tappers to fight for rainforest preservation. Then, he went global — drip! — bringing the National Council of Rubber Tappers to life, and speaking for human rights and environmentalism. He saw how his small efforts grew into a movement, saying: “At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rainforest. Now, I realize, I am fighting for humanity.”

Today’s doodle by Kevin Laughlin commemorates Mendez, who was tragically assassinated for his brave efforts.

[9A]

11 October 2022

João do Vale's 88th birthday


Vale was an Afro-Brazilian singer and composer who introduced northeastern music styles to communities across Brazil. Today’s Doodle celebrates what would have been João do Vale’s 88th birthday. He's remembered as a key figure in Brazil's music scene.

Vale was born in Pedreiras, Maranhão, in 1934. At a young age, he faced prejudice when he was expelled from school in order to make room for a higher-class student which made a significant impact on how he viewed the world and would later serve as a major influence in his work. He then had to turn to selling oranges at fairs to help support his family.

At 13, Vale was writing songs for a Brazilian musical group. They put on plays called Bumba-Meu-Boi, which portrayed the Maranhão culture through drama, dance, and lyrics. While it helped kickstart his lyrical passion, his involvement with the group didn’t provide enough money to elevate his family’s financial situation.

Vale left home to escape the injustice he faced in Pedreiras. He traveled to Rio de Janeiro and took up manual labor jobs like coal mining, bricklaying and construction work. In between jobs, he visited other major cities to share his melodies and poetry. Influenced by personal experiences and northeastern music genres like baião, Vale wrote songs about poverty and folk culture.

In the early 1950s, Vale get an opportunity to showcase his creation of upbeat dance rhythms at the Radio Nacional station— a radio station that influenced music tastes throughout Brazil. Since he did not know how to write, João had to commit all of his work to memory in order to present his pieces. His impressive baiãos caught the attention of the hosts and producers working there and his musical career took off! He began to work with artists who were excited to help him grow his compositions and songwriting skills.

By 1964, Vale was performing in showrooms that highlighted northeastern rhythms to working class people in southern Brazil. He wrote several musical hits​​, created two solo albums and composed songs that popularized many great names within the industry. He continued to create and share music rooted in his culture until his death in 1996.

A theater is dedicated to him in the Historic Center of São Luís and he’s honored in his hometown of Pedreiras with a memorial.

Happy 88th birthday, João do Vale!

[9A]

18 Oct 2022

Celebrating Andrew Watson


Today's Doodle celebrates Scottish footballer Andrew Watson as he looks into the future at Black football legends to come and was illustrated by London-based guest artist Selom Sunu. Watson is considered to be the first Black international footballer, the first Black footballer to captain his country, and the first Black football administrator in history. On this day in 1884, Watson took the field for Scottish football team Queen’s Park in the first game played at the new Hampden Park stadium.

Watson was born in 1856 in Georgetown, Guyana to a wealthy Scottish businessman and Guyanese woman. At age 5, Watson and his father moved to Britain where football was becoming increasingly popular. He fell in love with the sport while attending English public schools in Yorkshire and Wimbledon.

After his father’s death, Watson inherited his wealth and became financially independent. This allowed him to enroll at the University of Glasgow where he studied engineering, natural philosophy and mathematics. Instead of graduating, 21-year-old Watson started a wholesale warehouse business and played football on the side.

Watson gained a reputation for his fast and skillful style of play as a full-back for Queen's Park FC, one of the best football clubs in Scotland. Thanks to his experience as a businessman, he was also match secretary. After Queen’s Park FC won a Scottish football title, Watson earned a chance to play for Scotland’s international team. He became the first Black man to captain his country and led Scotland to multiple wins over their rival, England, including a 6-1 victory—which remains the biggest home loss for England, ever!

His success on the international stage spurred offers from the best clubs in Scotland and England. In 1887, Watson signed with Bootle FC in northern England. At this time, amateur clubs didn’t pay their players, but Bootle FC was known to pay high-profile names. If Watson had received money to play for the Liverpool club, he would technically be the first Black professional footballer.

Over the course of his 14-year career, Watson won the Scottish Cup three times and won all three matches he played in against England.The Hampden Bowling club in Glasgow, the site of Scotland's third victory over England, features a mural of Watson. Over a century has passed since Watson’s playing days, but his impact can still be felt across the sport today, as a shining example of lighting the way for past, current and future generations of Black footballers.

[9A]

9 February 2022

Celebrating Toni Stone




In honor of U.S. Black History Month, today’s Doodle illustrated by San Francisco, CA-based guest artist Monique Wray celebrates athlete Marcenia “Toni” Stone, who overcame both gender and racial discrimination to become the first woman in history to play professional baseball as a regular in a men’s major baseball league. On this day in 2021, Stone was inducted into the Minnesota Sports Hall of Fame.

Marcenia Lyle Stone was born in 1921 in Bluefield, West Virginia during an era of pronounced racial segregation in American sports. In 1931, Stone moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, where she developed her remarkable athleticism in the city’s public playgrounds and baseball fields. By just 15, the all-male semi-pro Twin Cities Colored Giants broke gender convention by bringing Stone onto its roster. In 1946, Stone went to bat with the San Francisco Sea Lions, marking the start of her illustrious professional career.

Her exceptional batting average of .280 earned her a spot on the bench with the Negro League All-Star team while she continued to travel across the United States playing second base for the minor league New Orleans Creoles. In 1953, Stone filled the spot of future Hall-of-Famer Hank Aaron as the second baseman for the Indianapolis Clowns, one of the League’s most prestigious teams. Undeterred by taunts during her debut season with the Clowns, Stone hit a single off of Satchel Paige, who is widely considered the greatest pitcher in Negro League history.

Stone played alongside legendary players such as Jackie Robinson throughout her career before retiring from professional baseball in 1954 as a legend. In 1990, March 6 was declared “Toni Stone Day” in her adopted hometown of St. Paul, where future generations of baseball players practice under the lights of Toni Stone Field. She has been honored by several exhibitions in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and in 1993, was inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.

Here’s to you, Toni Stone—thanks for showing the world what determination and unstoppable love for the game can achieve!

Thank you to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum for their support on this Doodle!

Black and white photo of Toni Stone jumping and throwing a baseball

Courtesy of Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

Courtesy of the Estate of Toni Stone

[9A]

9 February 2010

Natsume Soseki's Birthday




Natsume Sōseki [9 February 1867 – 9 December 1916], born Natsume Kin'nosuke, was a Japanese novelist. He is best known around the world for his novels Kokoro, Botchan, I Am a Cat, Kusamakura and his unfinished work Light and Darkness. He was also a scholar of British literature and writer of haiku, kanshi, and fairy tales. From 1984 until 2004, his portrait appeared on the front of the Japanese 1,000 yen note.

[9A]

11 February 2021

Celebrating María Grever




Today’s Doodle celebrates Mexican singer and songwriter María Grever, considered to be one of the country’s greatest composers. Grever spent a lifetime producing hundreds of songs that went on to be covered by some of the world’s most famous artists, like Placido Domingo, Aretha Franklin, and Frank Sinatra. On this day in 1938, Grever recorded “Ti-Pi-Tin,” a waltz about serenading your loved ones that became one of her biggest hits.


María Joaquina de la Portilla Torres was born in the late 19th century in the city of León in central Mexico. As a child, she moved to Seville, where she studied English, French, and music. Grever’s natural musical abilities were evident as she composed a holiday carol for her school. This led her father to provide her some of the finest tutors, including distinguished composers, Debussy and Lehár. Her first record, “A Una Ola” [“To a Wave,” 1912], sold millions of copies, and was eventually covered by several singers.

In 1916, Grever moved to New York, where she soon composed background music in films for both Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox. All the while, Grever continued to produce songs that married folk rhythms with styles like tango to captivate audiences throughout the Americas and Spain. Some of her biggest hits included “Júrame” [“Promise, Love,” 1926] and “What a Difference a Day Makes” [originally “Cuando Vuelva a Tu Lado,” 1934]. The latter went on to win a Grammy in 1959 as sung by jazz legend, Dinah Washington.

In recognition of her contributions to music, the Union of Women of the Americas [UWA] named Grever “Woman of the Americas” in 1952.

Thanks for all the music María Grever; it continues to strike a chord with listeners around the world today!

[9A]

11 February 2009

Tadataka Ino's Birthday




Inō Tadataka was a Japanese surveyor and cartographer. He is known for completing the first map of Japan using modern surveying techniques.

[9A]

11 February 2015

Zdeněk Burian’s 110th Birthday





Zdeněk Michael František Burian was a Czech painter, book illustrator and palaeoartist whose work played a central role in the development of palaeontological reconstruction.

Originally recognised only in his native Czechoslovakia, Burian's fame later spread to an international audience during a remarkable career spanning six decades [1930s to 1980s]. He is regarded by many as one of the most influential palaeoartists of the modern era, and a number of subsequent artists have attempted to emulate his style.