Google doodles

[9A]

May 28, 2019

Dorina Nowill’s 100th Birthday




Today’s Doodle celebrates the 100th birthday of Brazilian educator and advocate Dorina de Gouvêa Nowill, whose tireless efforts made Brazil more responsive to the needs of visually impaired.

An unfortunate illness left Nowill blind at the age of 17. As the first blind student to enroll in a regular school in São Paulo, she found it difficult to find the books she needed. As a result, she began advocating for all students’ access to culture and information. Becoming a teacher at her alma mater, Nowill implemented training for education of the blind and won a scholarship to further her studies at Columbia University in the United States. In 1946 she and some friends established the Foundation for the Book of the Blind in Brazil with the country’s first large Braille press, enlisting volunteers to transcribe various publications.

After working to found the Department of Special Education for the Blind, Nowill helped pass a law guaranteeing blind people’s right to an education. Such accomplishments led to new opportunities on a wider scale. Elected president of the World Council of the Blind in 1979, she went on to speak at the United Nations General Assembly and campaigned for the creation of the Latin American Union of the Blind.

Having won numerous philanthropic awards, Nowill’s legacy lives on in the work of her nonprofit organization, Fundação Dorina Nowill, which prints braille editions for Brazil’s Ministry of Education as well as everything from menus to airline safety cards. The foundation also distributes audio and digitally accessible books to schools and libraries all over Brazil, ensuring the just and inclusive society that Dorina Nowill foresaw.

Happy birthday, Dorina Nowill!

[9A]

May 28, 2010

Milutin Milankovich's Birthday





Milutin Milanković [28 May 1879 – 12 December 1958] was a Serbian mathematician, astronomer, climatologist, geophysicist, civil engineer and popularizer of science.

Milanković gave two fundamental contributions to global science. The first contribution is the "Canon of the Earth’s Insolation", which characterizes the climates of all the planets of the Solar system. The second contribution is the explanation of Earth's long-term climate changes caused by changes in the position of the Earth in comparison to the Sun, now known as Milankovitch cycles. This explained the ice ages occurring in the geological past of the Earth, as well as the climate changes on the Earth which can be expected in the future.

He founded planetary climatology by calculating temperatures of the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere as well as the temperature conditions on planets of the inner Solar system, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and the Moon, as well as the depth of the atmosphere of the outer planets. He demonstrated the interrelatedness of celestial mechanics and the Earth sciences and enabled a consistent transition from celestial mechanics to the Earth sciences and transformation of descriptive sciences into exact ones.

[9A]

May 28, 2012

Ruby Payne-Scott's 100th Birthday




Ruby Violet Payne-Scott, was an Australian pioneer in radiophysics and radio astronomy, and was the first female radio astronomer.

[9A]

August 20, 2019

Fong Fei-Fei’s 66th Birthday





Today’s Doodle celebrates the life and legacy of the beloved Taiwanese singer Fong Fei-Fei. Born Lin Chiu-luan on this day in 1953, she grew up in Dasi Township and went on to become one of Taiwan’s biggest pop stars, known for her melodic love songs and appealing personal style.

After winning a televised singing competition at age 16, she began a prolific 40-year career, during which she released more than 80 albums, sang over 100 movie theme songs, and starred in several films and TV variety shows. She’s remembered for hit songs like “Wish You Happiness,” “I am a Cloud,” and “The Wild Goose on the Wing.” Many of her songs were popularized in films based on romantic novels by prolific Taiwan-based writer Chiung Yao.

Nicknamed the “Queen of Hats,” the singer once estimated that she had over 600 hats in her collection, joking that she needed a computer database to organize them all.

Although she spent her later years in Hong Kong, she recorded many traditional Taiwanese ballads, along with Mandarin songs. She won Taiwan’s Golden Bell Awards in 1983 and 1984, and the nation’s Culture Minister hailed her as “Taiwan’s national singer.”


生日快樂, 鳳飛飛 !

[9A]

August 20, 2017

Cora Coralina's 128th Birthday




Anna Lins dos Guimarães Peixoto Bretas led a simple life selling sweets to the townsfolk in rural Goiás, Brazil, the same place where she was born in 1889. At the age of 76, she had her first book of poetry published, under the pseudonym Cora Coralina. She continued to write under that name and eventually was regarded as one of the country's most important writers.

Cora’s poetry is a mirror of her simple and peaceful rural life. She wrote about love and kindness in a light and sweet manner - quite fitting for a lifelong confectioner.

One of Cora's poems can be interpreted to say, "Life is not about the starting point, but the journey. If you sow as you walk, you'll have a harvest to reap at the end". In her own, unique way, she cultivated a rich world that continues to nourish her readers. Happy birthday, Cora!

[9A]

August 21, 2010

August Bournonville's 205th Birthday






August Bournonville was a Danish ballet master and choreographer. He was the son of Antoine Bournonville, a dancer and choreographer trained under the French choreographer, Jean Georges Noverre, and the nephew of Julie Alix de la Fay, née Bournonville, of the Royal Swedish Ballet.

Bournonville was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, where his father had settled. He trained with his father Antoine Bournonville as well he studied under the Italian choreographer Vincenzo Galeotti at the Royal Danish Ballet, Copenhagen, and in Paris, France, under French dancer Auguste Vestris. He initiated a unique style in ballet known as the Bournonville School.

Following studies in Paris as a young man, Bournonville became solo dancer at the Royal Ballet in Copenhagen. From 1830 to 1848 he was choreographer for the Royal Danish Ballet, for which he created more than 50 ballets admired for their exuberance, lightness and beauty. He created a style which, although influenced from the Paris ballet, is entirely his own. As a choreographer, he created a number of ballets with varied settings that range from Denmark to Italy, Russia to South America. A limited number of these works have survived.

[9A]

December 9, 2015

Whina Cooper’s 120th Birthday




When she was 18, Whina Cooper organized her first demonstration, rallying a small group to protest the leasing of land where the Maori people traditionally fished. When she was close to 80, Cooper led another protest, this time organizing thousands of people on a landmark march from the Far North to Parliament in Wellington to publicly decry the loss of millions of acres of Maori land. Not only did the march unite many different groups--a major feat at the time--, but it also attracted significant national attention, taking public awareness of Maori land rights to new heights.

Whina Cooper was an activist for most of her life. She fought tirelessly for the rights of Maori people, especially women, serving as the first president of the Maori Women’s Welfare League. In recognition of her efforts, she was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1981, and a member of the Order of New Zealand in 1991. Today, on what would have been her 120th birthday, we honor Dame Whina Cooper with a Doodle that pays tribute to her most historic achievement, that famous land march. Doodler Olivia When took inspiration from photos of the time, highlighting the fact that the march involved people of all ages, all brought together by a passionate and tenacious leader: Whina Cooper.

[9A]

June 30, 2017

Assia Djebar’s 81st Birthday






Many women achieve greatness, but few become “Immortal.” Assia Djebar was the first woman from the Maghreb to be given the "Immortal" title, as a member of the Académie Française.

Born Fatima-Zohra Imalayene on this date in 1936, the Algerian novelist, translator, and filmmaker used the pen name Assia Djebar. She was the first Algerian woman to be admitted to the country’s top literary university, the Ecole Normale Superieure. Djebar published her first book at 21; by the time she was 30, she had written 4 novels in French. She quickly became one of North Africa's most influential writers.

A feminist, Djebar wrote about women's independence and encouraged Algerian women to forge their own paths and find their unique voices. She believed that education was the key to giving women a voice in society, and in 1962 began teaching history at the University of Algiers. Her work inspired many women to express themselves freely.

Today’s Doodle reflects a scene from the first chapter of Djebar’s novel Fantasia, in which she explores the history of Algeria through her experiences as a young girl.

[9A]

June 30, 2017

Celebrating Victor Hugo







Today we celebrate world-renowned poet, statesman, and human rights activist Victor Hugo. The final chapter of his epic novel Les Misérables was published on this date in 1862.

Before he turned 30, Hugo was already an established poet, dramatist, artist, and novelist. Today's Doodle depicts some of his best-known works, including Notre Dame de Paris [The Hunchback of Notre-Dame] [1831] and the poetry collection Les Contemplations [1856]. Between those milestones, Hugo began his legendary novel Les Misérables, about social injustice, redemption, and revolution.

By the time Les Misérables was published in 1862, Hugo had been exiled almost 10 years for his political views. During that time, he produced three poetry collections, plus numerous books about social and economic disparity, including Les Travailleurs de la Mer [Toilers of the Sea] and L’Homme Qui Rit [The Man Who Laughs]. Hugo later founded the Association Litteraire et Artistique Internationale to support artists’ rights.

Hugo appeared on a French banknote and is honored with streets, parks, hiking trails, and statues in most large French cities, as well as in Guernsey, where he lived in exile. Today's Doodle is a fitting addition to the long list of tributes to the venerable Victor Hugo.

Explore the life and works of Victor Hugo by visiting Google Arts & Culture.

Doodle by Sophie Diao

[9A]

June 30, 2016

165th Anniversary of First Firefighter's Corp in Chile







Since 1851, Chile’s bomberos have risked life and limb to keep citizens safe from fire. There are 307 individual fire departments across Chile bonded together by Chile’s National Board of Fire Departments. What makes the bomberos especially unique is that they all serve on a volunteer basis.

It all started on this day in the bustling seaport of Valparaiso, where the city’s most influential citizens came together to form the First Firefighter’s Corp. More fire departments followed, each created by and for the community it represented.

Today’s Doodle was inspired by those who’ve served the people of Chile through their dedication and selflessness. Though they operate independently, the country’s bomberos share a common goal of working hard to protect local neighborhoods and communities.

[9A]

June 30, 2013

Herta Heuwer's 100th Birthday




Herta Charlotte Heuwer owned and ran a food kiosk in West Berlin. She is frequently credited with the invention of the take-out dish that would become the currywurst, supposedly on 4 September 1949. The original Currywurst was a boiled sausage, fried, with a sauce of tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, curry powder and other ingredients.

Heuwer was born in Königsberg. In January 1951, she registered a trademark for her sauce, Chillup.

Heuwer moved her business to a larger facility at Kaiser-Friedrich-Straße 59, which, during its heyday, was open day and night and employed 19 saleswomen. On 29 June 2003, the day before what would have been her 90th birthday, a plaque was dedicated in her honor at this address. Heuwer died in Berlin, aged 86.

Other sources claim that currywurst was invented in Hamburg. Author Uwe Timm contends in his novel The Discovery of Currywurst that he had eaten currywurst in Hamburg as early as 1947, but the inventor of Currywurst in his novel, Lena Brücker, is an admitted literary license. However, that did not prevent the former Hamburg Senator of the Interior Ronald Schill from honoring Lena Brücker in 2003.

Food historians such as Petra Foede believe that, as with most culinary creation myths, several rather than a single person were involved in developing this dish, sausage sellers experimenting with various spice mixes in order to replace the tomato ketchup that was unavailable during the immediate postwar years.

[9A]

June 30, 2021

Celebrating the Wadden Sea






Today’s Doodle celebrates the Wadden Sea, the world’s largest network of intertidal sand and mudflats, which spans the coastlines of the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. On this day in 2009, UNESCO designated the Wadden Sea a World Heritage Site in recognition of its unparalleled ecological and geological importance and the decades of effort dedicated to its preservation.

Created by storms during the 14th and 15th centuries, the Wadden Sea is a relatively young wetland environment that comprises one of the world’s last remaining undisturbed intertidal ecosystems. This magnificent stretch of sea and sand houses numerous plant and animal species, including the grey seal and harbor porpoise. Considered one of the most critical regions globally for migratory birds, it’s estimated that the wetlands are visited by over 10 million African-Eurasian birds annually and can harbor up to 6.1 million birds at once!

The Wadden Sea isn’t just a pristine habitat for wildlife—popular ways human visitors enjoy the scenery include exploring the mudflats at low tide or touring the barrier islands by boat. However, it's vital for tourists to respect the site’s essential role in maintaining global biodiversity. Current conservation efforts are grounded in a strategic partnership between UNESCO, environmental NGOs, the Wadden Sea Forum, and the governments of Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands so that future generations can enjoy this natural phenomenon.

Here’s to the Wadden Sea and preserving over 4,000 square miles of the natural world!

[9A]

December 7, 2020

Kateryna Bilokur's 120th Birthday





Today’s Doodle celebrates the 120th birthday of Ukrainian painter Kateryna Bilokur, a self-taught virtuoso who earned international renown for her detailed and vivid paintings, especially those featuring her signature focus on flowers. Through a courageous devotion to her craft, Bilokur overcame great adversity to earn recognition alongside the master artists of her time.

Kateryna Bilokur was born on this day in 1900 in Bohdanivka, a village in Ukraine’s Kyiv region. She was denied a primary education and spent her days as a farm worker, but she refused to let this stand in her way. She crafted brushes out of raw materials and paints out of foods like beets and elderberries to pursue her artistic passion in her free time, with nature as her muse.

Then when she was nearly 40, her life took a fortuitous turn. Inspired by a song on the radio, Bilokur wrote a letter of admiration to the Ukrainian singer Oksana Petrusenko with an original work attached. Petrusenko was so impressed that she helped pave the way for the first exhibitions of Bilokur’s work. Over the next two decades, her unique depictions of transcendent natural beauty reached an international audience, notably earning huge praise from the Spanish master Pablo Picasso at a 1954 exhibition in Paris.

For her lifetime achievements, Bilokur was named a People’s Artist of Ukraine, the highest arts award for Ukrainian citizens.

Happy birthday to an artist who proved it’s never too late to blossom into your potential.

[9A]

December 7, 2016

181st Anniversary of the Adler's First Run





All aboard! 181 years ago today, the Adler steam locomotive became the first commercial train to begin operation in Germany on Dec. 7, 1835. Meaning “eagle” in German, the Adler was built and designed in 1835 by Robert and George Stephenson in Newcastle upon Tyne, England for the Bavarian Ludwig Railway.

Over its 23 years of service, the Adler was used to transport passengers, goods, and cattle 7.45 kilometers [4.66 miles] between Nuremberg and Fürth with a top speed of 65 km/h [40 mph].

Retired in 1858, the Adler became a national symbol for power and industry. And while the original no longer exists, a working replica is currently on display at the Nuremberg Transport Museum, where it’s occasionally rolled out for exhibitions and special events.

[9A]

October 4, 2016

434th Anniversary of the Introduction of the Gregorian Calendar





From October 5–October 14, 1582, time was erased. Not literally, of course; just on the calendar. These ten days were declared non-existent by then-pope Gregory XIII as part of a realignment of the Julian calendar, implemented by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. In the mid-1570s, it was discovered that the Julian calendar was actually 10 days behind the seasons of the year. For example, Easter began falling later in the spring than it should have and eventually would have drifted into summer. The calendar creep was the result of the solar year [the time it takes Earth to make one revolution around the sun] being around 11 minutes shy of the full Julian calendar. To be precise, the solar year is actually 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds.

Pope Gregory saved the day [and season] by appointing a commission to solve the problem. It took five years, but eventually the group, led by physician Aloysius Lilius and astronomer Christopher Clavius, proposed eliminating three leap years every 400 years to keep the calendar on track. To transition to the Gregorian calendar, ten days were declared officially non-existent, with the day after October 4, 1582 declared October 15th. First implemented by Italy, Spain, and Portugal, the Gregorian calendar is today’s most widely used system.

[9A]

October 4, 2017

Violeta Parra’s 100th Birthday





Today we celebrate the 100th birthday of Violeta Parra, the Chilean composer, folk singer, social activist, author, and artist.

Born in the small, southern Chilean town of San Fabián de Alico, Parra picked up the guitar at an early age and began writing songs with her siblings. She started her career performing in small venues, later traveling across Chile to record a large breadth of traditional Chilean folk music. Her increasing popularity eventually earned her her own radio show and an invitation to perform at a youth festival in Poland. While in Europe, she also explored the visual arts, creating oil paintings, wire sculptures, ceramics, and burlap tapestries called arpilleras which were exhibited in the Louvre Palace in Paris in 1964.

She is perhaps best remembered as the “Mother of Latin American folk,” pioneering the Nueva canción chilena, a renewal of Chilean folk traditions that blossomed into a movement which celebrated the fight for social justice throughout Latin America. Upon her return to Chile in 1965, she established Centro Cultural La Carpa de La Reina, a community center for the arts and political activism.

Violeta’s artistic legacy shines through in this selection from “Gracias a la vida”:

Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto
Me dio dos luceros que cuando los abro
Perfecto distingo lo negro del blanco
Y en el alto cielo su fondo estrellado
Y en las multitudes el hombre que yo amo

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me two stars, which when I open them,
Perfectly distinguish black from white
And in the tall sky its starry backdrop,
And within the multitudes the one that I love.

[9A]

October 5, 2012

Brian Ó Nualláin's 101st Birthday







Brian O'Nolan, better known by his pen name Flann O'Brien, was an Irish novelist, playwright and satirist, considered a major figure in twentieth century Irish literature. Born in Strabane, County Tyrone, he is regarded as a key figure in modernist and postmodern literature. His English language novels, such as At Swim-Two-Birds and The Third Policeman, were written under the O’Brien pen name. His many satirical columns in The Irish Times and an Irish language novel An Béal Bocht were written under the name Myles na gCopaleen.

O'Brien's novels have attracted a wide following for their bizarre humour and modernist metafiction. As a novelist, O'Brien was influenced by James Joyce. He was nonetheless sceptical of the cult of Joyce, which overshadows much of Irish writing, saying "I declare to God if I hear that name Joyce one more time I will surely froth at the gob."

[9A]

October 30, 2013

Agustin Lara's 113th Birthday [latam]





Ángel Agustín María Carlos Fausto Mariano Alfonso del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús Lara y Aguirre del Pino known as Agustín Lara, was a Mexican composer and interpreter of songs and boleros. He is recognized as one of the most popular songwriters of his era. His work was widely appreciated not only in Mexico but also in Central and South America, the Caribbean and Spain. After his death, he has also been recognized in the United States, Italy and Japan.

Notable performers of his work include Pedro Vargas who was a friend, Juan Arvizu, Nestor Mesta Chayres, Pedro Infante, Javier Solis, Julio Iglesias, Manuel Mijares, Vicente Fernandez, Luis Miguel, Perez Prado, Chavela Vargas and Natalia Lafourcade among others.

Outside the Spanish speaking world, his most famous songs are Granada, Solamente Una Vez [You Belong to My Heart] and Piensa en mí, which have both been recorded by numerous international singers, including Enrico Caruso, Mario Lanza and José Carreras.

[9A]

Oct 31, 2018

40th Anniversary of Titicaca National Reserve






Today’s Doodle honors the 40th anniversary of the La Reserva Nacional del Titicaca [Titicaca National Reserve], which protects one of the rarest ecosystems on earth. Lake Titicaca is one of the planet’s few remaining ancient lakes, estimated to be 3 million years old. Situated in the Andes mountains some 3,810 meters above sea level, it holds the title for highest elevation of any major lake in the world and largest freshwater lake in South America.

Funded by the Peruvian state, the Titicaca National Reserve also supports the ancient civilization of the Uros people, who live on floating islands made from reeds, like the one seen in today’s Doodle. The Uros moved to these islands when the Incas expanded onto their land, and still live and fish there.

The National Reserve is also a living zoo of rare animals that require protection, including the Lake Titicaca frog, whose baggy skin enables it breathe under the surface of the lake. In the national reserve there’s also the Ballivian Sponge, which has been living there for 7,000 years; 60 species of birds; and mammals including the wild guinea pig, the vizcacha [a chinchilla-like rodent], and Andean wolves, llamas, alpacas, skunks, and foxes.

This truly amazing place is unlike any other on Earth, rich in biodiversity and culture — and the reserve is invaluable to its continued survival.

Happy anniversary to the Titicaca National Reserve!

[9A]

June 25, 2013

Antoni Gaudí's 161st Birthday





Antoni Gaudí i Cornet was a Catalan architect from Spain, known as the greatest exponent of Catalan Modernism. Gaudí's works have a highly individualized, sui generis style. Most are located in Barcelona, including his main work, the church of the Sagrada Família.

Gaudí's work was influenced by his passions in life: architecture, nature, and religion. He considered every detail of his creations and integrated into his architecture such crafts as ceramics, stained glass, wrought ironwork forging and carpentry. He also introduced new techniques in the treatment of materials, such as trencadís which used waste ceramic pieces.

Under the influence of neo-Gothic art and Oriental techniques, Gaudí became part of the Modernista movement which was reaching its peak in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His work transcended mainstream Modernisme, culminating in an organic style inspired by natural forms. Gaudí rarely drew detailed plans of his works, instead preferring to create them as three-dimensional scale models and moulding the details as he conceived them.

Gaudí's work enjoys global popularity and continuing admiration and study by architects. His masterpiece, the still-incomplete Sagrada Família, is the most-visited monument in Spain. Between 1984 and 2005, seven of his works were declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. Gaudí's Roman Catholic faith intensified during his life and religious images appear in many of his works. This earned him the nickname "God's Architect" and led to calls for his beatification.

[9A]

September 30, 2016

Andrejs Jurjans’s 160th Birthday



Today’s Doodle celebrates a man who, in many ways, carried Latvian music forward into the 20th century.

As the country’s first professional composer and musicologist, Andrejs Jurjāns delved into the Latvian folk music of the past while taking the sounds of his homeland to new heights. Throughout his lifetime, he collected and analyzed thousands of folk melodies, organizing them into an anthology that was published across six volumes. He also composed the first-ever Latvian symphonic works, including an instrumental concerto and a cantata, and was well-known for his choir arrangements.

When Jurjāns wasn’t crafting original pieces, he spent much of his time teaching. From 1882 — the year he finished his own schooling at the St. Petersburg Conservatory — to 1916, he shared his knowledge of music theory and more with students. Through his instruction, research, and composition, Jurjāns inspired many of the Latvian musicians who came after him. Today we pay tribute to that legacy on what would have been the composer’s 160th birthday.

[9A]

October 21, 2011

Mary Blair's 100th Birthday




I was greatly honored for the opportunity to create a doodle for Mary Blair's 100th birthday. Not to mention somewhat intimidated! Her work was and continues to be a major source of inspiration for a large number of artists working in animation, illustration, and fine art... and the Google Doodle team. So there was some pressure to get it right!

Of course, for all her technical mastery, from her wonderful color schemes to her deceptively simple shapes and compositions, what I've always admired most about her work is the sense of joy that went into making each picture. As a viewer, I can't help but sense that childlike enthusiasm and smile in response. This was Mary's ultimate goal, as she wrote in a letter to her husband, to "live to be happy and paint to express our happiness," and it's a goal very similar to our own as Doodlers -- to inspire happiness in our users when they see something new and unexpected on the Google homepage.

posted by Mike Dutton

[9A]

Oct 15, 2011

Italo Calvino's 88th Birthday










I was overjoyed to be able to celebrate one of my favorite authors, Italo Calvino. Ostensibly a science fiction writer, Calvino is more of a fabulist, using scientific notions as a jumping-off point for whimsical, delightfully far-fetched, extremely warm and compassionate little tales. The first work of Calvino's that I read was Invisible Cities, an imagined dialogue between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan that meditates on the different ways of conceptualizing cities.

For this doodle, however, I decided to illustrate the first story from my favorite Calvino collection, Cosmicomics. Cosmicomics is an audacious series of myths and legends that covers everything from the creation of the universe, to the evolution of land vertebrates, to the social lives of dinosaurs.

In this story, The Distance of the Moon, the protagonist tells of time when the moon orbited so close to the Earth that it was possible to row out into the middle of the ocean and climb onto the surface of the Moon with a ladder. Once on the moon, the protagonists and his friends would frolic and cartwheel while the Moon's gravity gently pulled jellyfish and crabs up out of the sea. It's a fantastic image, and hopefully one that's very evocative to readers of Calvino.

If you haven't yet, please consider investigating his work!

[9A]

Sep 20, 2018

Josefa Llanes Escoda’s 120th Birthday





When Josefa Llanes Escoda was attending elementary school in Dingras, her hometown in the Philippines, she went to class despite an impending typhoon. “I'll not let the weather keep me away from school,” the determined young student told her mother. After graduating as valedictorian, she went on to join the Red Cross and win a scholarship to the United States, where she studied social work, earning a masters degree from Columbia University.

Born on this day in 1898, Escoda was the eldest of seven children and always showed a great interest in women’s issues. A strong advocate for female suffrage, she worked tirelessly to make sure voting rights were extended to all citizens. She founded the Boy's Town in Manila for underprivileged youth in 1937 and the Girl Scouts of the Philippines in 1940, changing the lives of young people in her native country for the better.

Escoda’s face appears on the 1000 peso bill and streets, buildings, and a monument have been dedicated in her honor. As a living legacy to her work, the Girl Scouts of the Philippines honor Escoda by celebrating her birthday each year with acts of service, carrying the example she set forward for generations to come.

[9A]

September 21, 2009

Birthday of H.G. Wells




Herbert George Wells [21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946] was an English writer. Prolific in many genres, he wrote dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, history, satire, biography and autobiography. His work also included two books on recreational war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is often called the "father of science fiction", along with Jules Verne and the publisher Hugo Gernsback.

During his own lifetime, however, he was most prominent as a forward-looking, even prophetic social critic who devoted his literary talents to the development of a progressive vision on a global scale. A futurist, he wrote a number of utopian works and foresaw the advent of aircraft, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television and something resembling the World Wide Web. His science fiction imagined time travel, alien invasion, invisibility, and biological engineering. Brian Aldiss referred to Wells as the "Shakespeare of science fiction", while Victorian scholar Charles Fort referred to him as a "wild talent".

Wells rendered his works convincing by instilling commonplace detail alongside a single extraordinary assumption – dubbed “Wells's law” – leading Joseph Conrad to hail him in 1898 as "O Realist of the Fantastic!". His most notable science fiction works include The Time Machine [1895], which was his first novel, The Island of Doctor Moreau [1896], The Invisible Man [1897], The War of the Worlds [1898] and the military science fiction The War in the Air [1907]. Wells was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times.

[9A]

April 3, 2018

John Harrison’s 325th Birthday





It’s been said that necessity is the mother of invention, and without a doubt, British horologist John Harrison brought that age-old proverb to life.

Born on this day in 1693, in Foulby, Yorkshire, England, Harrison was a self-educated clockmaker and carpenter who came to the rescue of countless sailors by creating the first marine chronometer to calculate longitude at sea.

Seeking to remedy naval disasters, the British government created the Board of Longitude in 1714, which offered a reward of £20,000 to anyone who could devise a navigational instrument that could find the longitude within 30 miles of a sea voyage.

Harrison took on the challenge. He set to work on his chronometer in 1728 and completed it in 1735, following up this feat with three watches that were even smaller and more on the money than his first.
Harrison’s extraordinary invention brought him much acclaim. Thanks to him, seamen could determine not only gauge latitude but longitude, making their excursions far safer.

Our colorful Doodle shows the inventor hard at work, surrounded by the tools of his trade. Today, time is on his side.

Happy 325th birthday, John Harrison!

[9A]

May 5, 2019

Stanislaw Moniuszko’s 200th Birthday





Today’s Doodle by Warsaw-based illustrator Gosia Herba honors Stanisław Moniuszko, the Polish musician, composer, conductor, and teacher. Born on May 5, 1819, Moniuszko went on to become director of the Warsaw Opera House where he premiered many of his own works, including one of the most beloved operas in Polish history.

After being taught music by his mother as a child, Moniuszko was sent to study harmony, counterpoint, instrumentation, and conducting with the director of the Singakademie Music Society. There, he decided to become a composer, with a special interest in the human voice.

While working as an organist in Wilno, Moniuszko began writing his songbook, Śpiewnik Domowy [Home Songbook], publishing the first of 12 volumes in 1843. During a trip to Warsaw, he met the poet Włodzimierz Wolski, who’d written a libretto for an opera named Halka, based on a Polish folk story. Moniuszko composed the music, drawing inspiration from traditional Polish dance music known as polonaises and mazurkas. Halka premiered in Wilno in 1848 and later traveled to Prague, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. Expanded to four acts in 1858, the opera was hailed as a Polish cultural treasure, making Moniuszko a national hero.

A statue of Moniuszko stands outside Warsaw’s Opera House to this day, and his legacy lives on in The Stanislaw Moniuszko Music Academy in Gdansk. An international vocal competition in his name also takes place every three years. In it, finalists compete for a chance to sing with Poland’s National Opera on the stage where Moniuszko’s legend began.​

[9A]

May 5, 2009

250th Anniversary of Kew Gardens





Kew [Royal Botanic Gardens] is a botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park in Middlesex, England, its living collections includes some of the 27,000 taxa curated by Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, while the herbarium, which is one of the largest in the world, has over 8.5 million preserved plant and fungal specimens. The library contains more than 750,000 volumes, and the illustrations collection contains more than 175,000 prints and drawings of plants. It is one of London's top tourist attractions and is a World Heritage Site.

Kew Gardens, together with the botanic gardens at Wakehurst in Sussex, are managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, an internationally important botanical research and education institution that employs over 1,100 staff and is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

The Kew site, which has been dated as formally starting in 1759, though it can be traced back to the exotic garden at Kew Park, formed by Henry, Lord Capell of Tewkesbury, consists of 132 hectares [330 acres] of gardens and botanical glasshouses, four Grade I listed buildings, and 36 Grade II listed structures, all set in an internationally significant landscape. It is listed Grade I on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

Kew Gardens has its own police force, Kew Constabulary, which has been in operation since 1847.

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October 9, 2015

605th Anniversary of Prague astronomical clock














Check out the Prague Astronomical Clock on Google Street View, from both the outside and the inside [and try taking the stairs!]

The hands of Prague’s astronomical clock have measured a staggering amount of history. It predates Shakespeare by over a century, and had been operational for two years by the time Joan of Arc was born. Despite over a half a millennium of wear and a brush with disaster in WWII, much of its original machinery remains intact, making it the oldest functioning clock of its kind in the world.

Today’s Doodle honors a magnificent achievement in medieval engineering and a cultural landmark whose symbolism, design, and intermittent repairs are a remarkable catalogue of Europe’s past.

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Nov 6, 2015

Adolphe Sax’s 201st Birthday







If you were alive in the mid-nineteenth century and had a particularly keen ear for music, you might have noticed a void somewhere between the brass and woodwind sections. Adolphe Sax certainly did, and being both a talented musician and the enterprising man that he was, he started tinkering and endeavored to fill it. The result was the iconic, honey-toned instrument still bearing his name: the saxophone.

The son of an instrument-maker, Sax was highly creative and had a deep understanding of brass and woodwinds. He started tinkering with instruments of his own, and upon bringing together the body of a brass and the mechanics of a woodwind created a hybrid that would revolutionize music. His eponymous saxophone had a sound all its own, a wonderfully smoky middle ground between the two.

The Saxophones that were popularized by the likes of John Coltrane, Lisa Simpson, and Kenny G constitute only a fraction of his impressive body of work. From the whimsical looking 7-bell trombone to the large and swooping saxtuba, Sax never tired of exploring, experimenting, and creating new—and sometimes unusual—instruments. To properly highlight his inventiveness we couldn’t possibly make just one Doodle. Which is why you can find five unique Doodles today, each celebrating a different instrument created at the hands of Mr. Sax. There is one notable exception—what we affectionately call The Googlehorn. Inspired by the intricate tubing Sax employed to alter and manipulate sound, this is Doodler Lydia Nichols' attempt to fashion an instrument as unique and quirky as both Adolphe Sax and Google

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Nov 9, 2015

Hedy Lamarr's 101st birthday






We love highlighting the many good stories about women’s achievements in science and technology. When the story involves a 1940s Hollywood star-turned-inventor who helped develop technologies we all use with our smartphones today… well, we just have to share it with the world.

Today on Google’s homepage we’re celebrating Hedy Lamarr, the Austrian-born actress Hollywood once dubbed “the most beautiful woman in the world.” Lamarr’s own story reads like a movie script: bored by the film industry and feeling typecast, Lamarr was more interested in helping the Allied war effort as World War II broke out than in the roles she was being offered. She had some background in military munitions [yes, really], and together with a composer friend, George Antheil, used the principles of how pianos worked [[yep, pianos) to identify a way to prevent German submarines from jamming Ally radio signals. The patent for “frequency hopping” Lamarr co-authored laid the groundwork for widely-used technologies like Bluetooth, GPS and wifi that we rely upon daily.

It’s no wonder, then, that Lamarr has kind of a mythical status at Google, and I was pretty excited at the chance to tell her story in Doodle form. This took some tinkering of my own—after deciding on the movie format as a nod to her Hollywood career, I dug through old fashion illustrations and movie posters to try to capture the look and feel of the 1940’s. Sketching storyboards on a yellow notepad helped me figure out how to show Lamarr in very different scenarios—movie star by day, inventor by night—which we then animated and set to the awesome soundtrack created by composer Adam Ever-Hadani.

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Nov 13, 2015

Dorothea Christiane Erxleben's 300th Birthday





Throughout her life, Dorothea Christiane Erxleben advocated for women's rights and maintained the unwavering conviction that women should be allowed to—and ought to—pursue an education. After receiving a dispensation from Frederick the Great, Erxleben earned her M.D. from University of Halle in 1754, the first woman in Germany’s history to do so!

Happy 300th birthday, Dr. Erxleben!

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November 21, 2008

René Magritte's 110th Birthday -
Courtesy of Succession René Magritte / ARS, NY






René François Ghislain Magritte was a Belgiansurrealist artist, who became well known for creating a number of witty and thought-provoking images. Often depicting ordinary objects in an unusual context, his work is known for challenging observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality. His imagery has influenced pop art, minimalist art, and conceptual art.

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November 1, 2014


Mariquita Sanchez de Thompson's 228th Birthday







Mariquita Sánchez de Thompson y de Mendeville, was a patriot from Buenos Aires and one of its leading salonnières, whose tertulias gathered many of the leading personalities of her time. She is widely remembered in the Argentine historical tradition because the Argentine National Anthem was sung for the first time in her home, on May 14, 1813.


A tertuliais a social gathering with literary or artistic overtones, especially in Iberia or in Latin America. Tertulia also means an informal meeting of people to talk about current affairs, arts, etc. The word is originally Spanish [borrowed by Catalan and Portuguese], but it has only moderate currency in English, used mainly in describing Latin cultural contexts.

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November 1, 2012

L.S. Lowry's 125th Birthday





Laurence Stephen Lowry was an English artist. His drawings and paintings depict Pendlebury, Lancashire, where he lived and worked for more than 40 years, Salford and its vicinity.

Lowry is famous for painting scenes of life in the industrial districts of North West England in the mid-20th century. He developed a distinctive style of painting and is best known for his urban landscapes peopled with human figures, often referred to as "matchstick men". He painted mysterious unpopulated landscapes, brooding portraits and the unpublished "marionette" works, which were only found after his death.

His use of stylised figures, which cast no shadows, and lack of weather effects in many of his landscapes led critics to label him a naïve "Sunday painter".

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Dec 3, 2011

Nino Rota's 100th Birthday





Giovanni Rota Rinaldi, better known as Nino Rota , was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor and academic who is best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti. He also composed the music for two of Franco Zeffirelli's Shakespeare films, and for the first two films of Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather trilogy, earning the Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Godfather Part II [1974].

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Dec 2, 2013

Carlos Merida's 122nd Birthday









Carlos Mérida was a Guatemalan artist who was one of the first to fuse European modern painting to Latin American themes, especially those related to Guatemala and Mexico. He was part of the Mexican muralism movement in subject matter but less so in style, favoring a non-figurative and later geometric style rather than a figurative, narrative style. Mérida is best known for canvas and mural work, the latter including elements such as glass and ceramic mosaic on major constructions in the 1950s and 1960s.

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December 16, 2010

Jane Austen's 235th Birthday





Jane Austen was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favourable social standing and economic security. Her works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism. Her use of biting irony, along with her realism, humour, and social commentary, have long earned her acclaim among critics, scholars, and popular audiences alike.

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Sep 1, 2016

34th Anniversary of Similan Islands National Park







Today’s Doodle takes you under the stunning waters of Thailand’s Similan Islands. Located northwest of Phuket in the Andaman Sea, the archipelago of 11 islands is famous for its breathtaking dives. Sea turtles, zebra sharks, and blue-spotted stingrays are just a few of the species an underwater adventurer might encounter.

Equally as inviting as the coral reefs are the park’s white sandy beaches. From there, long-tail boats can be spotted navigating the waters against a backdrop of ironwood and gum trees. Also fluttering above sea level, a number of feathered species call the islands home — everything from white-bellied eagles to yellow-browed warblers.

Rich in both wildlife and natural beauty, the Similan Islands were named a national park 34 years ago today. Now it’s time to dive in and celebrate!

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September 1, 2011

Tarsila do Amaral's 125th Birthday








Besides the 230 paintings, hundreds of drawings, illustrations, prints, murals, and five sculptures, Tarsila's legacy is her effect on the direction of Latin American art. Tarsila moved modernism forward in Latin America, and developed a style unique to Brazil. Following her example, other Latin American artists were influenced to begin utilizing indigenous Brazilian subject matter, and developing their own style. The Amaral Crater on Mercury is named after her.

In 2018 MoMA opened a solo exhibition of her work.

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May 29, 2018

Nepal Republic Day 2018







In today’s Doodle, one of the rose-gold peaks of the Himalayas rises through the clouds in honor of Nepal’s 11th National Republic Day. The holiday commemorates the country becoming a federal democratic republic on May 28, 2008, ending 239 years of monarchy.

Republic Day, also called Ganatantra Diwas, is celebrated throughout Nepal and around the world. Typically, a parade held in Tundikhel—a wide, open space in the heart of Nepal’s capital city Kathmandu—is chief among the celebrations. In years past, government officials have released pigeons, a sign of peace, from the Army Pavilion. Army helicopters splashed with the Republic flag sprinkled flower petals from the sky. The Nepal Army, Nepal Police, and the Armed Police Force marched with artists, musicians, and karatekas [practitioners of karate], displaying different aspects of Nepal’s myriad cultures and traditions.

Today, we wish Nepalis everywhere a happy Ganatantra Diwas with the country’s colorful prayer flags and magnificent mountains—a symbol of national pride.

Doodle by Vrinda V Zaveri

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November 17, 2016

Elisabeth "Ellis" Kaut's 96th Birthday





Who's that little goblin lighting the birthday cake? The impish Pumuckl, created by Elisabeth "Ellis" Kaut, has been playfully causing mischief since 1962. Pumuckl is a kobold, a kind of sprite based in German folklore. He constantly gets into trouble but never intends any real harm. Kaut, who would be 96 today, wrote more than 100 Pumuckl stories. She received several awards and honors for her work, including the prestigious Bavarian Poetentaler literary award.

Today's Doodle was created by Barbara von Johnson, who became the primary Pumuckl illustrator in Kaut's books after winning a competition at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts in 1963.

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October 16, 2019

Celebrating Wanda Rutkiewicz






“I adored the physical movement, the fresh air, the camaraderie, and the excitement,” wrote the Polish mountain climber Wanda Rutkiewicz. On this day in 1978, she reached the summit of Mount Everest, becoming the third woman to ascend the world’s highest peak, and the first Pole, male or female.

Rutkiewicz would go on to complete seven more 8,000-meter-plus [26,247-foot-plus] climbs, establishing herself as one of the most celebrated climbers in mountaineering history and one of the greatest female climbers of all time.

Born on February 4, 1943 to a Polish family in the village of Plungiany—now part of Lithuania— Wanda studied electrical engineering at Wroclaw University of Technology. She discovered her passion for climbing by chance after her motorcycle ran out of fuel in 1961. One of the people who stopped to help invited her to join him on a climb of the Falcon Mountains.

Ten years after reaching the peak of Mount Everest, Rutkiewicz became the first woman to climb K2—the world’s second-highest peak—doing so without using supplemental oxygen. Two of her fellow climbers perished on the descent from K2, but she would continue pursuing her dreams.

Rutkiewicz published books and produced documentaries about her climbs, but despite her many accomplishments, she found some male climbers to be condescending. She went on to advocate for women’s climbing and to organize several all-female expeditions. In 1990, she declared her goal of climbing eight 8,000-meter-plus [26,247-foot-plus] peaks in just over a year’s time, a program she called the “Caravan of Dreams.” Although she did not complete that particular mission, Wanda Rutkiewicz has continued to inspire generations of climbers to follow in her footsteps.

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March 31, 2013

Cesar Chavez's 86th Birthday





Cesar Chavez was an American labor leader and civil rights activist. Along with Dolores Huerta, he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association [NFWA], which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee [AWOC] to become the United Farm Workers [UFW] labor union. Ideologically, his world-view combined leftist politics with Roman Catholic social teachings.

Chavez was referenced by Stevie Wonder in the song "Black Man" from the 1976 album Songs in the Key of Life. The 2014 American film César Chávez, starring Michael Peña as Chavez, covered Chavez's life in the 1960s and early 1970s. That same year, a documentary film, titled Cesar's Last Fast, was released. He received belated full military honors from the US Navy at his graveside on April 23, 2015, the 22nd anniversary of his death. In 2015, statues of Chavez and Huerta were erected above a pizzeria in Downtown Napa, financed by a wealthy private citizen, Michael Holcomb, rather than the city authorities.

There is a portrait of Chavez in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. In 2003, the United States Postal Service honored Chavez with a postage stamp. A three-dimensional mural by artist Johanna Poethig, Tiene la lumbre por dentro [He Has the Fire Within Him] [2000] at Sonoma State University, honors Chavez and the Farm Workers Movement. The American Friends Service Committee [AFSC] nominated him three times for the Nobel Peace Prize.

At the start of the presidency of Joe Biden, a bust of Chavez was placed on a table directly behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.

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May 5, 2019

Stanislaw Moniuszko’s 200th Birthday





Today’s Doodle by Warsaw-based illustrator Gosia Herba honors Stanisław Moniuszko, the Polish musician, composer, conductor, and teacher. Born on May 5, 1819, Moniuszko went on to become director of the Warsaw Opera House where he premiered many of his own works, including one of the most beloved operas in Polish history.

After being taught music by his mother as a child, Moniuszko was sent to study harmony, counterpoint, instrumentation, and conducting with the director of the Singakademie Music Society. There, he decided to become a composer, with a special interest in the human voice.

While working as an organist in Wilno, Moniuszko began writing his songbook, Śpiewnik Domowy [Home Songbook], publishing the first of 12 volumes in 1843. During a trip to Warsaw, he met the poet Włodzimierz Wolski, who’d written a libretto for an opera named Halka, based on a Polish folk story. Moniuszko composed the music, drawing inspiration from traditional Polish dance music known as polonaises and mazurkas. Halka premiered in Wilno in 1848 and later traveled to Prague, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. Expanded to four acts in 1858, the opera was hailed as a Polish cultural treasure, making Moniuszko a national hero.

A statue of Moniuszko stands outside Warsaw’s Opera House to this day, and his legacy lives on in The Stanislaw Moniuszko Music Academy in Gdansk. An international vocal competition in his name also takes place every three years. In it, finalists compete for a chance to sing with Poland’s National Opera on the stage where Moniuszko’s legend began.

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March 26, 2019

Bangladesh Independence Day 2019





Today’s Doodle celebrates Independence Day in Bangladesh, the South Asian nation situated on the Bay of Bengal and a deltaic nation with almost 700 rivers flowing through it!

On this day in 1971, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, often titled Bangabandhu [which translates to “friend of Bengal”], signed a declaration that made the former East Pakistan the sovereign and independent country of Bangladesh with its own unique language and culture. This founding document followed Bangabandhu’s historic speech, delivered on March 7.

A public holiday in Bangladesh, Independence Day is commemorated with parades, fairs, and concerts as well as patriotic speeches. A festive spirit fills the capital city of Dhaka, where the Bangladesh flag flies proudly, and many government buildings are lit up with the national colors: green and red. The green symbolizes Bangladesh’s abundant flora and the potential of the nation’s youth while the red circle in the middle of the flag represents the sun rising over the relatively new and developing country.

Joy Bangla!

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February 28, 2019

Trịnh Công Sơn's 80th Birthday






Today’s Doodle celebrates the life and legacy of Trịnh Công Sơn, a prolific and powerful Vietnamese musician, songwriter, poet, and painter.

Born in Đắk Lắk in Vietnam’s central highlands on this day in 1939, Sơn was raised in a Buddhist family by parents who both wrote poetry. His father was imprisoned for several years during Sơn’s youth in the capital city of Buôn Ma Thuột for his vocal resistance to the Vietnamese War. In fact, around the age of 10, Sơn spent a year living with him in Thừa Phủ Prison. Educated at the Lycée Francais school in the ancient imperial capital city of Huế, Sơn also studied philosophy at Lycée Jean Jacques Rousseau in Saigon.

Sơn first worked as a teacher before pivoting careers to become a songwriter in the 1950s. His songs protesting the Vietnam War—particularly those on the 1966 collection Songs of Golden Skin—were popular with soldiers on both sides of the conflict. After the war ended, much of his family fled their homeland, but Sơn chose to stay, writing songs about the unification of North and South Vietnam that displeased government authorities, who sent him to do forced labor in a “re-education camp.”

Following his release, he continued to record music and paint throughout his life.

Widely considered one of Vietnam’s most important modern musicians, Sơn was admired by international singers such as Joan Baez. His song “Ngủ Đi Con” [Lullaby] about the mother of a fallen soldier was a hit in Japan. Today, his music is still recorded by popular Vietnamese singers, such as Hồng Nhung.

Happy Birthday, Trịnh Công Sơn!

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January 31, 2019

Celebrating Nasi Lemak



Today’s Doodle celebrates the rich, fragrant, and spicy dish, known as Nasi Lemak. The dish — considered the national dish of Malaysia and widely eaten year-round — is what many Malaysians start their day with. Also popular in Singapore and Thailand, the humble delicacy is believed to have originated as a hearty farmer’s breakfast on the west coast of the Malaysian peninsula.

Although the name translates from Malay as “rich rice” [a reference to the coconut milk included in the recipe] there is another origin story for the name. According to legend, the daughter of a widow named Mak Kuntum accidentally spilled coconut milk into the rice pot. “What did you cook?” Mak asked and her daughter answered. "Nasi le, Mak!" [Rice, mother!]

There are many variations of the dish across the multiethnic melting pot of Malay, Chinese, Indian, and other indigenous and imported cultures, but the fundamental recipe — featured in today’s video Doodle — is rice cooked with santan or coconut milk and flavored with pandan leaf and galangal root, served with ikan bilis [fried anchovies], crispy peanuts [skin on], sliced cucumber, hard-boiled egg, and sambal [hot sauce] or a splash of tamarind juice, with an optional piece of fried chicken or beef rendang on the side. Sold at roadside stalls wrapped in a “bungkus” of banana leaf or brown paper, Nasi Lemak is so popular it’s also eaten for lunch and dinner, too!

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January 31, 2010

Tapati Rapa Nui Festival 2010





Tapati Rapa Nui literally means “Rapa Nui Week” in the local language, but under that name a series of unique events take place to constitute the most important cultural festival of Easter Island and one of the most important in all Polynesia.

The Tapati festival is celebrated every year during the first half of February, so the original concept that gave it its name has extended one more week. The Tapati Rapa Nui, which was born more than 40 years ago and had its origins in the ancient “spring festivities” that were celebrated in Chile, has been transformed over time to become a tribute to the ancestral traditions of the Rapanui people, and on a unique occasion to relive, share and preserve the cultural identity of this fascinating corner of the planet.

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February 12, 2009

Charles Darwin's 200th Birthday





Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. His proposition that all species of life have descended from common ancestors is now widely accepted and considered a fundamental concept in science. In a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and he was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey.