Google doodles

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Mar 3, 2012
Girls' Day 2012

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Mar 1, 2012
Quinquela Martín's 122nd Birthday







Benito Quinquela Martín was an Argentine painter. Quinquela Martín is considered the port painter-par-excellence and one of the most popular Argentine painters. His paintings of port scenes show the activity, vigor and roughness of the daily life in the port of La Boca.

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Feb 29, 2012
Marcela Paz's 110th Birthday






Marcela Paz was the pen name of Esther Huneeus Ramos Falla Salas de Claro, a Chilean writer. She also used the pen names of Paula de la Sierra, Lukim Retse, P. Neka and Juanita Godoy. She was a recipient of the National Prize for Literature.

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Feb 29, 2012
Gioachino Rossini's 220th Birthday







Gioachino Antonio Rossin was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity.

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Feb 25, 2012
Kuwait National Day 2012

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Feb 25, 2012
Ibn Battuta's 708th Birthday








Ibn Battuta was a Muslim Berber-Moroccan scholar, jurist and explorer who widely travelled the Old World, largely in the lands of Dar al-Islam, travelling more than any other explorer in pre-modern history, totalling around 117,000 km [72,000 miles], surpassing Zheng He with about 50,000 km [30,000 miles] and Marco Polo with 24,000 km [15,000 miles]. Over a period of thirty years, Ibn Battuta visited most of the Old World, including Central Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, China and the Iberian Peninsula. Near the end of his life, he dictated an account of his journeys, titled A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling, but commonly known as The Rihla.

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February 25, 2016
Lesya Ukrainka’s 145th Birthday




Lesya Ukrainka was one of Ukrainian literature's foremost writers, best known for her poems and plays. She was also an active political, civil, and feminist activist.

Among her most well-known works are the collections of poems On the wings of songs [1893], Thoughts and Dreams [1899], Echos [1902], the epic poem Ancient fairy tale [1893], One word [1903], plays Princess [1913], Cassandra [1903—1907], In the Catacombs [1905], and Forest Song [1911].

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February 25, 2010
2010 Vancouver Olympic Games - Nordic

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Feb 23, 2010
2010 Vancouver Olympic Games - Freestyle Skiing

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Feb 16, 2010
2010 Vancouver Olympic Games - Curling

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Feb 14, 2010
Lunar New Year 2010 - Multiple Countries

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September 12, 2018
Caio Fernando Abreu’s 70th Birthday





Born on this day in 1948 in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, Caio Fernando Abreu is one of his country’s most celebrated contemporary writers, whose work explored the LGBTQ+ experience and sensitive themes such as loneliness, alienation, and AIDS.

Abreu studied dramatic arts in college and worked as an editor and pop culture journalist before focusing on writing stories, novels, and plays. In 1975 he won honorable mention in a national fiction contest, but he is best known for his collection of stories Os dragões não conhecem o paraíso, which translates from Portuguese as “Dragons do not know the paradise.” First published in 1987, it was eventually translated into French and English and retitled simply ‘Dragons...’

I’ve got a dragon living with me.

No, it’s not true.

I haven’t really got a dragon. And even if I did have, he wouldn’t live with me.

These enigmatic and evocative lines from ‘Dragons…’ reflect the central theme of this work. In Abreu’s fiction “Dragons” represent individuals living at the margins of society—drag queens, gay teens, bisexual men, and a range of others —unknowable, lonely, powerful, untamable, invisible, and perceived by the mainstream as dangerous. Today’s Doodle pays tribute to Abreu’s courageous and compassionate spirit, and his insightful and emotionally charged body of work.

Like many Brazilian artists and writers at the time he ran afoul of the DOPS, the "Department for Political and Social Order," a government agency that maintained files on anyone considered a potential enemy of the state. His novel Onde Andara Dulce Veiga [Whatever Happened to Dulce Veiga?] won the Best Novel award in 2000 from the São Paulo Association of Art Critics and he won won three Jabuti Prizes, Brazil’s most prestigious literary honor. Two of Abreu's short stories were adapted into films and plays, and his novel Onde Andará Dulce Veiga became a 2008 feature film, directed by his friend Guilherme de Almeida Prado.

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Sep 11, 2018
First Day of School 2018 [Greece]

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September 11, 2009
First Day of School 2009 - Greece & Turkey

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Sep 16, 2009
Mexico Independence Day 2009

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September 16, 2013
Mexico Independence Day 2013

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Sep 13, 2013
Karolos Koun's 105th Birthday







Koun was born in Bursa, present day Turkey, as an Ottoman Empire citizen to a Greek mother and a Polish Jewish father. He was educated in Ottoman Turkey until the end of high school. He graduated from Robert College in Istanbul and then went to Sorbonne for his university education. As his family's economic situation worsened, he couldn't continue his education.

He had been praised all over Europe for his bawdy, colorful stagings of the 5th century BC political comedies of Aristophanes. In 1942, he founded the experimental Art Theater and its drama school.

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Sep 6, 2013
Leonidas da Silva's 100th Birthday






Leônidas da Silva was a Brazilian football player. He played for Brazil national team.

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Sep 5, 2013
John Wisden's 187th Birthday









John Wisden was an English cricketer who played 187 first-class cricket matches for three English county cricket teams, Kent, Middlesex and Sussex. He is now best known for launching the eponymous Wisden Cricketers' Almanack in 1864, the year after he retired from first-class cricket.

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Aug 31, 2013
Hari Merdeka/Malaysia Independence Day 2013



Merdeka is a word in the Indonesian and Malay language meaning independent or free. It is derived from the Sanskrit maharddhika meaning "rich, prosperous and powerful". In the Malay archipelago, this term had acquired the meaning of a freed slave.

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Aug 27, 2013
First Day of School 2013

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August 8, 2012
Basketball 2012






With the addition of a video game console in our home, my brothers and I used to spend as many hours playing sports in front of the tv as we did outside.

The good ol' fashion button mashin' of my youth was no small part of the inspiration for the 2012 Summer Games interactive doodles. [[In fact, collaborator Marcin Wichary even wired up these doodles with the then newly released Gamepad API, allowing users to mash actual buttons.)

To my great joy, over one billion games were played on the Google homepages in this four-day interactive doodle run. [[Besides this basketball game, there're doodles for hurdles, slalom canoe, and soccer/football.) With each game presenting an opportunity to share your high score, I'm sure quite a few brothers, sisters, friends, etc. were able to play, compete, and grow closer with these doodles.

As a personal touch, the setting of this particular "event" was inspired by another place I used to spend a lot of time with my brothers – our elementary school gym.

Here's a video of us performing at a talent show in that very gym. I'm exhibiting my talent for choreographed dancing in a shark costume, obviously.

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August 15, 2019
India Independence Day 2019







Today’s Doodle, by India-born, Copenhagen-based guest artist Shaivalini Kumar, celebrates Independence Day in India. On this day in 1947 one of the world’s oldest and most ethnically diverse civilizations became a sovereign nation, free from British rule. The Doodle depicts traditional motifs from Indian textiles evoking the complex yet harmonious “patchwork” of Indian culture, ranging from education, to the arts, to courage and compassion.

India is the world’s second most populous country, and many of its 1.3 billion citizens will join in the Independence Day festivities. While the subcontinent marks the occasion in various ways—from patriotic kite-flying to Amritsar’s “beating retreat” ceremony—no site is more historically significant than Lahori Gate at the Red Fort in Delhi, where then Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru first addressed the newly independent nation.

India’s flag will be seen flying proudly today from Delhi to Bombay and everywhere in between. As the flag is raised each year, a 21-gun salute rings out, accompanied by the national anthem “Jana Gana Mana.” Parades, awards, and cultural events complete the momentous occasion.

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Aug 12, 2019
Mother's Day 2019 [Thailand]

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August 12, 2014
Mother's Day 2014 [Thailand]

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September 4, 2017
First Day of School 2017 [France, Poland]

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Sep 6, 2017
Celebrating British Sign Language and the Braidwood Academy











As millions of children head back to school for the start of term, today we celebrate one educational institution in particular: the Braidwood Academy. Opened in 1760 in Edinburgh, Braidwood is considered the UK’s first school for deaf children and the first to include sign language in education.

Thomas Braidwood, the school’s founder, had just one deaf student when the school first opened. It turned out that one student was all it took – by 1780, the number had increased to 20 students as Braidwood found success in his teaching methods.

In addition to helping lay the groundwork for deaf education in Great Britain, Braidwood’s work contributed significantly to the development of British Sign Language [BSL]. He relied on teaching communication through natural gestures, which differed from the focus on speech and lip-reading elsewhere in Europe. His form of sign language ultimately set the standards for BSL as it is known today.

Today’s Doodle features a group of schoolchildren signing the letters below them. It is a celebration of the Braidwood Academy’s work but also of the importance of education for all students with their diversity of needs. Check out the video below to learn how to sign the alphabet using British Sign Language.

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Sep 7, 2017
Sir John Cornforth’s 100th Birthday







Today's Doodle celebrates chemist Sir John Warcup Cornforth, born in Sydney on this date in 1917. During childhood, Cornforth began to lose his hearing, and he was completely deaf by the age of 20. Unable to hear the lectures in his classes at the University of Sydney, he devoured chemistry textbooks on his own.

One fateful day at university, Cornforth met fellow chemist Rita Harradence. She had broken a flask in the lab and asked Cornforth — an accomplished glassblower — to repair it. Thus began a long professional and romantic partnership. In 1939, Cornforth and Harradence both won scholarships to study at Oxford, and they married two years later. Together they wrote more than 40 scientific papers. [Now that's chemistry!]

At Oxford, Conforth joined the team that made great strides in the study of penicillin. He then returned to his earlier research on the three-dimensional structure ["stereochemistry"] of various chemical reactions. In 1975, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for this work. Cornforth and co-laureate Vladimir Prelog studied the enzymes that activate changes in organic compounds. Their conclusions opened the door to many discoveries, including the development of cholesterol-lowering drugs.

When the Nobel Prize was announced, the press release admitted, "This subject is difficult to explain to the layman." But it was already clear that millions of people would benefit from Cornforth's lifelong curiosity about the workings and wonder of the natural world.

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August 25, 2018
Leonard Bernstein’s 100th Birthday







Happy 100th birthday to American music icon Leonard Bernstein! The youngest conductor ever to lead the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, he was also the first U.S. conductor to gain international renown, leading a 1953 performance of ‘Medea’ at La Scala in Milan, Italy's foremost opera house.

The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Bernstein discovered music around age 10 and overcame his parents’ resistance to his passion for the arts. His creativity and talent spilled over from one artform to the next, and throughout his life, the most persistent criticisms of his work were that he did too much. “I want to conduct,” he wrote late in life. “I want to play the piano. I want to write for Hollywood. I want to write symphonic music. I want to keep on trying to be, in the full sense of that wonderful word, a musician. I also want to teach. I want to write books and poetry. And I think I can still do justice to them all.''

Today’s Doodle celebrates Bernstein’s life set to one of his most iconic works—the score to West Side Story. The tale, following the turf war between two rival gangs and star-crossed lovers in the west side of Manhattan, was brought to life through Bernstein’s gripping score. The original 1957 production was nominated for six Tony Awards including Best Musical. Explore the history and legacy of the iconic musical by visiting Google Arts & Culture.

A larger-than-life personality, Bernstein held the baton with emphatic mannerisms, reacting to the emotion of the music mid-performance. As Director of the New York Philharmonic, he exposed generations of young people to musical programming on television. Before Bernstein’s tenure, no widely-aired television show existed to educate youth through musical performances. In this way, and as a popular commentator about music on radio and TV, he made intellectual culture more accessible to the public at large.

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Aug 27, 2018
198th Anniversary of the First Ascent of the Zugspitze






The Zugspitze is Germany’s tallest mountain, standing at a height of 2,962 meters, and situated along the border between Germany and Austria.

The first people to ascend the Zugspitze were Lieutenant Josef Naus, a 27-year-old engineer from the Royal Bavarian Army, his mountain guide Johann Georg Tauschl, and a military orderly named Maier. Lieutenant Naus was employed by the Royal Bavarian Topographic Bureau, putting together an Atlas of Bavaria. Seeking to prove that this pinnacle was the loftiest in the Kingdom of Bavaria, they trekked across glaciers covered with melting ice— conditions ripe for avalanches.

Setting out in July they made their way across the largest glacier, proceeding to a shepherd’s hut from which they would attempt to climb the summit. After a short night’s rest, Naus’ party undertook their ascent on August 27, 1820, reaching the top seven hours and forty-five minutes later. Storms soon enfolded the mountain, hastening the men’s descent.

Today, visitors can take a cable car up the steep incline to the top, where they are rewarded with awe-inspiring views of the many jagged limestone peaks forming the border between Germany and Austria.
Some believe that local climbers—gatherers or hunters—may have beaten the Naus survey team to the summit before 1820. But Naus, Tauschl, and Maier were the first to prove their success in reaching the pinnacle. Today’s Doodle celebrates the Zugspitze immensity, beauty, and its importance to both Austria and Germany.

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Aug 30, 2018
Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky’s 155th Birthday







In today’s smartphone era, many people carry the equipment needed to create a color photograph in their pockets. But at the start of the 20th century, photography was a much more complicated process. Between 1909 and 1915 Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky traveled through Russia in a railroad car specially equipped with a mobile darkroom to document Russian life using a technique he called ”optical color projection.”

Born in Murom, Vladimir Province, Russia, on this day in 1863, Prokudin-Gorsky was a chemist who became interested in photography. He traveled to Germany to study with Adolf Miethe, a pioneer of the color separation method, and soon developed his own formulation for photographic emulsion so he could create life-like photos in natural colors. His portrait of the great Russian author Leo Tolstoy was widely reproduced, bringing Prokudin-Gorsky a measure of fame. As a result, Tsar Nicholas II agreed to sponsor his ambitious project.

Prokudin-Gorsky’s images of people, landscapes, architecture, historic sites, industry, and agriculture were created by exposing three glass plates through three different color filters—green, red and blue—and then combining them to create a composite color image-a technique displayed in today’s animated Doodle. He captured thousands of images that offer a rare glimpse of Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution and First World War.

Prokudin-Gorsky planned to use the resulting photos to educate Russian school children about their vast country. Today,his body of work is preserved on thousands of glass plates, which are prized by historians and scholars.

Happy Birthday Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky!

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Aug 30, 2018
Prayoon Yomyiam’s 85th Birthday






Today’s Google Doodle celebrates Prayoon Yomyiam, a singer affectionately known in Thailand as Mae Prayoon or “Mother Prayoon.” Born on this day in 1933, she began singing at the age of 15 in a style of traditional Thai folk music known as Lam Tad. Originating in central Thailand, this popular form of antiphonal singing involves groups of men and women who take turns playfully poking fun at each other with improvised humorous lyrics, accompanied by a drum called a Klong Ramana.

Renowned for her clever lyrics with dual meanings [a technique known in Thailand as song ngae song ngam] Prayoon Yomyiam never failed to delight audiences. Cassette recordings and videos of her Lam Tad performances circulated widely throughout Thailand, helping to promote the Lam Tad tradition and keep it alive. By 1994 she was named a National Artist of Thailand, a title conferred annually by the National Culture Commission of Thailand recognizing notable artists in the country’s cultural heritage.

Prayoon helped to preserve and popularize the Lam Tad style of music,which once faced extinction before being introduced into nationwide popular culture via television. Aside from helping the music make a comeback domestically, she introduced Lam Tad to other countries as part of Thailand’s state-sponsored tourism campaign. Using her talents to spread laughter and cheer, Yomyiam helped keep Thailand’s folk culture alive for generations to come.

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Sep 1, 2018
Fatima Surayya Bajia’s 88th Birthday






Fatima Surayya Bajia was an award-winning author and dramatist who wrote plays and adapted classic Urdu novels for Pakistani radio and television. Born on this day in 1930 in Hyderabad Deccan, India, she was the eldest of ten children. The name “Bajia” means older sister.

Although she did not attend a formal school, she was well educated at home and became a pioneer for women in the fields of literature and the media. When the family moved to Pakistan following the partition with India, they brought with them a library containing several thousand books. These were trying times for the family and Bajia eventually took on the responsibility of raising her nine siblings—who included the painter, writer, and television personality Anwar Maqsood, the poet and screenwriter Zehra Nigah, and celebrity chef Zubaida Tariq—earning money by sewing dolls and designing clothes. She was renowned for her wit, wisdom, and elegant style—starched saris and a strand of pearls—reflected in today’s Doodle.

Bajia began her writing career with Pakistan’s Daily Jang in 1960. From there she started writing radio plays and working with PTV soon after the network was founded. After the success of her televised serial Auraq, she went on to write hundreds of popular plays and adaptations with a strong emphasis on women, children, and Urdu culture. Baija was known for spending long hours at work and taking a close interest in all details of production from set design to costume design and makeup.

Long enamored with Japanese literature, Baija wrote many haiku poems and received an award in Japan as well as numerous accolades in Pakistan, including the 1996 Pride of Performance Award and the 2012 Hilal-i-Imtiaz [Crescent of Excellence] presented by the President of Pakistan. Perhaps her greatest legacy is the women she inspired to follow in her footsteps. In the words of Pakistani actor Atiqa Odho. “Women like her opened doors for us.” In that respect Bajia was a “big sister” to many.

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Sep 2, 2018
Vietnam National Day 2018







Rising from beneath the water to open at dawn, the fragrant lotus seen in today’s Doodle is the national flower of Vietnam. A symbol of hope, the pink and white blossom is also associated with purity—which is woven into Vietnamese culture, medicine, architecture, and cuisine. The traditional Lotus Dance dates back to the 1600s, when it was performed in royal palaces celebrating the birth of Buddha. The archways over Ho Chi Minh City’s Nguyen Hue Boulevard are giant neon lotus flowers, and many Vietnamese dishes include lotus root slices.

In cities and towns all over Vietnam, friends and family get together in celebration of National Day. Parties and festivities occur all over the Southeast Asian country today, with large celebrations in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The warm summer weather provides an ideal setting for people to enjoy their country’s cultural and natural riches – from food to flowers.

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Sep 9, 2018
Grandparents' Day 2018 [Philippines]

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Sep 9, 2018
Children's Day 2018 [Costa Rica]

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Sep 10, 2018
Professor Dorothy Hill’s 111th Birthday









“I couldn’t really see why a woman couldn’t run a university,” said Dorothy Hill, the trailblazing Australian geologist and paleontologist who became president of the Professorial Board at her alma mater, the University of Queensland, in 1971. A pioneer in her field, Hill was the first woman to become a professor at any Australian university as well as the first female president of the Australian Academy of Science.

After studying chemistry in at university, Hill took an early interest in the geology of coral. After graduating with honours, she won a scholarship to earn her PhD at Cambridge University, where she published papers on the structure and morphology of coral and earned a pilot’s license in her spare time. In 1939, Hill worked with the Geological Survey of Queensland studying early core samples of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Following the war, Hill continued to win prestigious accolades, becoming president of the Royal Society of Queensland, Chairman of the Geological Society of Australia, Queensland Division, and the first female fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 1956. She edited the Journal of the Geological Society of Australia and published more than 100 research papers in various respected journals. In 1964, Hill was awarded the Lyell Medal for scientific research and became the first Australian woman to be a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.

Professor Hill retired from the University in late 1972, returning to research her landmark Bibliography and Index of Australian Paleozoic Coral, whichwas published in 1978. A Dorothy Hill chair in Paleontology and Stratigraphy was endowed in her honor, and the Australian Academy of Sciences now bestows the Dorothy Hill Award for female researchers in earth sciences. Her colleagues at the University of Queensland created a 3D model of her rock hammer for an exhibition at the School of Earth Sciences. Her name was also given to numerous species of invertebrate fossils, including Acanthastrea hillae, Australomya hillae, Filiconcha hillae, and Reticulofenestra hillae.

Born on this day in 1907, Professor Hill’s accomplishments inspire countless other young women to pursue careers in academia. Today’s Doodle celebrates the intrepid field researcher, scholar and inspirational role model for future generations.

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Sep 11, 2018
Joanna Baillie’s 256th Birthday




The prolific yet soft-spoken Scottish writer, born on this day in 1762, was compared to Shakespeare during her lifetime and is often hailed as one of the greatest female poets of all times. Her first poem, “Winter Day,” evoked the natural beauty of her native Scotland. Her cottage outside London was a hub of the literary scene, where she maintained friendly relationships with many of the important British writers of her time, including William Wordsworth, and Lady and Lord Byron.

In the "Introductory Discourse" to her 1798 Plays on the Passions, Baillie set the tone for what would come to be known as English Romanticism. She spent fourteen years working on her ambitious three-part project, a series of comedies and tragedies about love, hatred and jealousy with the stated goal of “unveiling the human mind under the dominion of those strong and fixed passions.” Today’s Doodle depicts some of her best-loved ‘Plays on the Passions’: Ethwald, De Monfort, The Tryal, Basil, and Orra.

First published anonymously, Baillie’s plays were the talk of London as readers tried to guess the author’s identity. Despite her obvious talents, she was reluctant to publish at all—"were it not that my Brother has expressed a strong wish that I should publish a small vol: of poetry,” she wrote in a letter, ”I should have very little pleasure in the thought”— but she was determined that her plays [psychological dramas featuring strong female characters] be performed by actors on stage rather than simply read. “I have wished to leave behind me in the world a few plays,” she wrote in the preface to her 1804 collection ‘Miscellaneous Plays,’ “some of which might have a chance of continuing to be acted even in our canvas theatres and barns.”

Baillie’s literary legacy is rivaled only by her philanthropy. Though born into a well-off Scottish family, her mother saw hard times following her father’s sudden death. A wealthy uncle’s inheritance helped her and her sister purchase the cottage where she lived and worked for most of her life, but she never forgot the less fortunate, donating half of the earnings from her writing to charity. She wrote an essay in support of chimney sweeps, and advocated for women writers as well as other authors who struggled to provide for themselves.

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August 17, 2017
Indonesia Independence Day 2017







Today we celebrate Indonesia’s Independence Day, known locally as Hari Kemerdekaan.

In the country’s capital of Jakarta and other large cities throughout the archipelago, this historically significant day is celebrated with elaborate parades including marching bands and floats festooned with Indonesia’s red-and-white flag. Flag-raising ceremonies also dominate the day, while performers sing the national anthem of Indonesia. Friends and families bond over activities like sack racing and climbing palm trees [panjat pinang] and show their culinary chops in cooking competitions featuring dishes from a myriad of cultures.

Using whimsical figures and rich colors and patterns, today’s Doodle by guest artist Aditya Pratama encapsulates the spirit of “unity in diversity” [Bhinneka Tunggal Ika] the national motto of Indonesia [derived from a 14th-century Javanese poem] that defines the joy of this landmark day.

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August 17, 2010
Indonesia Independence Day - 2010

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August 17, 2004
2004 Athens Olympic Games - Archery

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Aug 24, 2004
2004 Athens Olympic Games - Synchronized Swimming

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Jun 8, 2005
Frank Lloyd Wright's 138th Birthday




Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright believed in designing in harmony with humanity and the environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture. This philosophy was exemplified in Fallingwater [1935], which has been called "the best all-time work of American architecture." Wright played a key role in the architectural movements of the twentieth century, influencing generations of architects worldwide through his works.

Wright was the pioneer of what came to be called the Prairie School movement of architecture and also developed the concept of the Usonian home in Broadacre City, his vision for urban planning in the United States. He also designed original and innovative offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, museums, and other commercial projects. Wright-designed interior elements [including leaded glass windows, floors, furniture and even tableware] were integrated into these structures. He wrote several books and numerous articles and was a popular lecturer in the United States and in Europe. Wright was recognized in 1991 by the American Institute of Architects as "the greatest American architect of all time." In 2019, a selection of his work became a listed World Heritage Site as The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Raised in rural Wisconsin, Wright studied civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin and then apprenticed in Chicago, first with Joseph Lyman Silsbee [1887] and then with Louis Sullivan [1888]. He opened his own successful Chicago practice in 1893, and established a studio in his Oak Park, Illinois home in 1898.

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Novera Ahmed's 80th Birthday






Today’s Doodle celebrates the pioneering artist Novera Ahmed, who is considered the first modern sculptor in Bangladesh and whose distinctive work borrowed from Western, folk, indigenous, and Buddhist themes to reflect the experiences of women.

Ahmed was born in 1939 during a sea crocodile hunt in the largest mangrove swamp in the Ganges. She was drawn to sculpture from a young age, inspired by watching her mother make dolls and clay houses. When her father attempted to marry her off to a noble family, she resisted, insisting that she wanted to become a sculptor.

Ahmed studied design at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in London, graduating in 1955 and going on to receive further training in Florence and Vienna. She rose to prominence in 1960 with Inner Gaze, the first-ever solo sculpture exhibition by any sculptor in Bangladesh or Pakistan. A collaboration with painter Hamidur Rahman resulted in the Shaheed Minar, a national monument in Dhaka commemorating the Bengali Language Movement demonstrations of 1952.

In 1963, Ahmed bid farewell to her home and settled permanently in Paris. Two years traveling through East Asia inspired a departure in form, yielding several assemblages made from the debris of American warplanes. In 1997, Ahmed received an Ekushey Padak, the second highest civilian award in Bangladesh.
Today, many of her works can be viewed at the Novera Ahmed Museum, founded in 2018 by her husband in the small town of La Roche-Guyon outside of Paris.

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Mar 30, 2019
María Moliner’s 119th Birthday








María Moliner devoted her whole life to working with words, and making their power accessible to all. Born in Paniza [a province of Zaragoza] on this day in 1900, the Spanish librarian, philologist, and lexicographer labored single-handedly to create a new kind of reference book, which was hailed as “the most complete, most useful, most accurate, and funniest dictionary of the Spanish language” by novelist Gabriel García Márquez.

Moliner began working as a librarian at age 22 and was elected head of the University of Valencia library in 1936. She took a special interest in the popular libraries project, developing a plan for Bibliotecas Rurales [Rural Libraries] to help promote literacy and culture. Following the Spanish Civil War, her family was penalized by the new authoritarian government, causing her to be passed over for faculty promotions.

Moliner began compiling her Diccionario de Uso del Español [Dictionary of Spanish Use], in 1952, working at home before and after her day job. A mother of four as well as a grandmother, she had extraordinary powers of concentration. Moliner would research words read in newspapers or heard on the street, aiming to outdo the dictionary published by the Real Academia Española. “The Academy dictionary is the dictionary of authority,” she once said. “Mine has not had much regard for authority.”

Instead of alphabetical organization, Moliner’s dictionary was grouped in families of words, offering not only detailed definitions, but also synonyms, and guidance on usage. When she began the project she estimated it would take two years, but the first edition of the two-volume dictionary was not published until 1966—a total of 15 years later!

Her life inspired a stage drama, The Dictionary, as well as a documentary film, Tending Words. However, the dictionary itself, sometimes referred to as “The María Moliner,” is widely considered her greatest legacy.

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Apr 1, 2019
Sawong "Lor Tok" Supsamruay's 105th Birthday







Rising from humble beginnings to become one of Thailand’s most acclaimed comedic actors, Sawong Supsamruay—known to audiences as Lor Tok—appeared in more than 1000 films, and stars in today’s Doodle.

Born in Bangkok on this day in 1914, Supsamruay worked on his family’s orchard as a boy until it was destroyed by a flood. He later made a living tending riverboats, driving a bicycle rickshaw, and boxing professionally. After joining a comedy troupe, he got his first chance to act on screen in the 1933 fim Wan Chakayan, officially kicking off a 50+ year acting career.

Supsamruay’s portrayal of a poor man named Lor Tok who forgets his roots after striking it rich in the popular film Klai Kuer Kin Kuer resonated so much with audiences that the name stuck throughout the rest of his career. Unlike this character, Supsamruay stayed true to himself no matter how successful he became, bringing a self-deprecating charm to his roles as the amusing sidekick to various leading men during the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s.

Although best known for his comedies, Lor Tok took on dramatic roles as well, winning a Thai National Film Association award for his performance as a moneylender in Money, Money, Money. Beyond acting, Lor Tok started his own production company, where he both directed and starred in films. In 1995 he was named a National Artist of Thailand in recognition of his outstanding accomplishments in the performing arts.

The actor’s larger-than-life legacy was introduced to a younger Thai generation through the animated Dracula Tok Show, which caricatured the beloved comedian. Today, fans can also visit the Lor Tok Museum, opened by his widow in the simple wooden house they shared together.

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Apr 3, 2019
Sofia Mogilevskaya’s 116th Birthday








Today’s Doodle celebrates the life and work of Sofia Mogilevskaya, a prolific Russian author of stories for children and young readers.

Born in Moscow on this day in 1903, Mogilevskaya was raised in a musical household. Her father was an accomplished cellist and music teacher who taught her to play piano. Childhood memories of him performing for Leo Tolstoy made a deep impression on her, especially when the young musician changed her focus to journalism and eventually literature.

After ending her studies at the Moscow Conservatory, Mogilevskaya began contributing articles and essays to magazines, translating fairy tales, and writing fiction. Once she settled on becoming a writer, her writing habits remained a daily practice for more than 40 years. In 1941, her first children’s book Mark of the Country Gondelupy was published. Later, her experience working in an orphanage during World War II inspired her 1949 book House in Tsybiknur.

Whether she was writing a fairy tale, a historical work like her books on important figures from Russian music and theater, or educational works like Girls, This Book is for You!, Mogilevskaya’s writing always showed a deep respect for children. Queen Toothbrush was the first of her works to be adapted to the screen as an animated film. Her Tale of the Loud Drum, about a boy during the Russian Revolution, was initially rejected by publishers but later became a bestseller that was also later adapted into a feature film.

“To tell the truth, I am surprised at myself,” the author once wrote, “what a dashing courage I had!”

[9A]

Apr 4, 2019
Hugh Masekela's 80th Birthday

The great [and now, sadly late] Hugh Masekela. I don't know of another flugelhorn artist, let alone one who combined jazz and African pop/soul. This quote was in the text: “:My biggest obsession is to show Africans and the world who the people of Africa really are.”
—Hugh Masekela

Today’s Doodle celebrates the world-renowned South African trumpeter, singer, bandleader, composer, and human rights advocate Hugh Masekela. Born 80 years ago today in the coal-mining town of Witbank, South Africa, Masakela got his first horn at age 14. He went on to play with a wildly popular group known as the Jazz Epistles, the first all-black jazz band to record an album in South African history. However, within the year, its members were forced out of the country by the apartheid government.

At the age of 21, Masakela began a 30-year exile, traveling to New York where he enrolled in the Manhattan School of Music and dived into the city’s jazz scene, observing jazz giants like John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Mingus, and Max Roach on a nightly basis. “You’re just going to be a statistic if you play jazz,” Miles Davis advised him, “but if you put in some of the stuff you remember from South Africa, you’ll be different from everybody.”

Encouraged by the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong, Masakela delved into his own unique influences to create his 1963 debut album, entitled Trumpet Africaine. By the late ’60s he moved to Los Angeles, and performed at the Monterey Pop Festival on a bill that included Jimi Hendrix, Ravi Shankar, and The Who. His 1968 single “Grazin’ in the Grass” hit #1 on the U.S. pop charts.

Masakela would go on to collaborate with the likes of Fela Kuti, Bob Marley, Marvin Gaye, Paul Simon, and Stevie Wonder. In 1990, “Bra Hugh” returned to South Africa in time to see his song “Bring Him Back Home [Nelson Mandela]” come true. When the ANC leader was released from prison and elected South Africa’s first black president, Masakela’s music was the soundtrack.

[9A]

Apr 5, 2019
Hedwig Kohn’s 132nd Birthday






Taking us inside Hedwig Kohn’s lab, today’s Doodle by Hamburg-based guest artist Carolin Löbbert celebrates the life and science of the pioneering physicist. After earning her doctorate in 1913, Kohn went on to become one of only three women certified to teach physics at a German university before World War II.

As a Jewish woman living in Nazi Germany, Kohn was barred from her teaching position in 1933. She spent the next several years fulfilling research contracts in industrial physics before fleeing to the US in 1940. There, she returned to her passion, teaching at the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina and Wellesley College in Massachusetts until 1952. After retiring from the classroom, Kohn took on a research associate position at Duke. In the sub-basement of the school’s physics building, where her lab was located, she directed Ph.D students in their research while continuing her own work in flame spectroscopy—something she had started in 1912.

Over the years, Kohn’s work resulted in more than 20 publications, one patent, and hundreds of textbook pages that were used to introduce students to the field of radiometry [a set of techniques meant to measure electromagnetic radiation, including visible light] well into the 1960s.

[9A]

Apr 13, 2019
Songkran 2019





Marking the beginning of the Thai New Year, today’s Doodle celebrates Songkran, a three-day holiday that has been known to last for a whole week.

While the original festivities involved sprinkling water on one another for purification, and washing away bad luck for the year to come, Songkran has evolved into one big, joyous national water fight. In Chiang Mai, the action starts a day early with a grand procession around the northern Thai city. The Bangkok street party known as Silom takes place along a 4-kilometer street replete with vendors selling water balloons, squirt guns, street food, and drinks. On the island of Phuket, pickup trucks filled with water throwers patrol the crowded streets near the Patong Beach area, while live music and cultural events take place in Phuket Town’s Saphan Hin Park.

Songkran is also a time for spring cleaning, spending time with family and loved ones, and paying respect to time-honored cultural traditions.