Google doodles

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9 Aug 2012
Slalom Canoe 2012

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10 Aug 2012
Soccer 2012

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11 Aug 2012
Rhythmic Gymnastics 2012

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12 Aug 2012
Closing Ceremony 2012

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15 Aug 2012
Julia Child's 100th Birthday





The scene in our living room in the early ‘60s will be familiar to many. I can picture my dad sitting in hischair, glued to the new black-and-white miracle of technology in our house, watching The French Chef...for the sheer fun of the show. Fast-forward nearly 15 years and I would find myself, as a young student at La Varenne cooking school in Paris, standing in front of Julia Child herself. At that first meeting, for a moment, I had Julia’s undivided attention and her intent interest in my goals and plans as a cook. [Happily, that encounter would lead to opportunities to work as a member of Julia’s team, to travel with her around the U.S. and in France, and to a treasured friendship until her death in 2004. I would even become executive director of that esteemed cooking school – due, in large measure, to her influence and support.]

Countless times throughout the years that’s the scene which would became familiar to me – Julia engaging and encouraging both professional chefs and home cooks. She would rarely leave a restaurant without a visit to the kitchen or exit a book signing without having communed with everyone in line; she was an active mentor to many of us. Julia was so approachable that people felt they knew her – no one hesitated to stride right up and start a conversation – and in fact, they did know her. After all, she’d been in our living rooms taking us by the hand in the kitchen for years. [Ever-embracing of new technologies, I believe Julia would be thrilled to know that she’s now literally inpeople’s hands, on digital devices.] But more than that, what people saw on camera was what they’d experience in person. It was all pure Julia. Especially on the occasion of what would have been her 100th birthday, it’s clear that Julia Child is simply someone we love to love. For good reason – there are many qualities that endear her to us. She came into her own later in life and helped to redefine age.

[One of her secrets to aging, I discovered, is that she never saw herself as old. After attending a Smith College reunion in her late 70s, she told me she’d never go to another. “Too many old people,” she said] Julia loved hard and worked hard [[more than anyone I have ever known) and accomplished great things that endure. [How many authors have a New York Times best seller nearly 50 years after publication?]

She was opinionated, utterly authentic, and a self-professed ham. She managed to be both serious and a showman, making things look easy while never compromising her incredibly disciplined approach. She demystified and democratized French cooking [[the gold standard and height of sophistication when she took the stage) and appeared to have a ball doing it. Julia dedicated her support to the organizations and causes that mattered to her most, particularly those related to cooking and the pleasures of the table. In 1995, Julia created the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts for the purpose of continuing that support after she’d “slipped off the raft”, as she would often refer to dying. The Foundation is proud to help further Julia’s life’s work.

Julia believed in all of us. She felt that if she could show us how to cook well, we’d do just that. She wanted us to experience the pleasures – in both life and work – that she had, and to revel in good food. “The thing about food,” she said in a 1966 Time Magazine cover story, “is you’re a much happier person if you eat well and treasure your meals.” So to quote Julia once again – on the occasion of her 100th birthday – “Bon Appétit!”

[9A]

15 Aug 2012
National Liberation Day of Korea 2012







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

[9A]

23 Aug 2012
Alexander Grin's 132th Birthday






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

[9A]

24 Aug 2012
Ukraine Independence Day 2012

[9A]

26 Aug 2012
Rhazes' 1147th Birthday





Abū Bakr Muhammad Zakariyyā Rāzī , was a Persian polymath, physician, alchemist, philosopher, and important figure in the history of medicine. He also wrote on logic, astronomy and grammar.

A comprehensive thinker, Razi made fundamental and enduring contributions to various fields, which he recorded in over 200 manuscripts, and is particularly remembered for numerous advances in medicine through his observations and discoveries. An early proponent of experimental medicine, he became a successful doctor, and served as chief physician of Baghdad and Ray hospitals. As a teacher of medicine, he attracted students of all backgrounds and interests and was said to be compassionate and devoted to the service of his patients, whether rich or poor.

[9A]

27 November 2018
Fe del Mundo’s 107th Birthday






“I’m glad that I have been very much involved in the care of children, and that I have been relevant to them,” says Filipina physician Fe del Mundo. “They are the most outstanding feature in my life.”

Born in Manilla on this day in 1911, del Mundo was inspired to study medicine by her older sister who did not herself live to realize her dream of becoming a doctor. Also known as “The Angel of Santo Tomas,” del Mundo devoted her life to child healthcare and revolutionized pediatric medicine in the process.

A gifted student who became the first woman admitted to Harvard Medical School, del Mundo returned home after completing her studies in the U.S. During World War II, she set up a hospice where she treated more than 400 children and later became director of a government hospital. Frustrated with the bureaucracy, she eventually sold her house and belongings to finance the first pediatric hospital in the Philippines. Del Mundo lived on the second floor of the Children's Medical Center in Quezon City, making early morning rounds until she was 99 years old, even in a wheelchair.

When she wasn’t treating patients she was teaching students, publishing important research in medical journals, and authoring a definitive ‘Textbook of Pediatrics.’ She established the Institute of Maternal and Child Health to train doctors and nurses, and became the first woman to be conferred the title National Scientist of the Philippines and received many awards for her outstanding service to humankind.

[9A]

23 Nov 2018
Nikolai Nosov’s 110th Birthday



Blending fairy tales, fantasy, and science fiction, Nikolai Nosov wrote children’s literature whose playful prose delivered powerful insights into human nature. His short stories like “Alive Hat,” “Cucumbers,” and “Miraculous Trousers,” and a humorous trilogy of novels about the misadventures of a very small boy named Neznaika [whose name translates as “Know-Nothing” in English] made Nosov a favorite of young readers all over Russia and beyond.

Born on this day in 1908 in Kiev, Ukraine, Nosov attended the Moscow Institute of Cinematography and worked as a producer of animated educational films before he began publishing fiction, often in popular children’s magazines like Murzilka. In 1952 his endearing novel Vitya Maleev at School and at Home was awarded the Stalin Prize, the Soviet Union’s state award, elevating his profile as a writer considerably. The book was later adapted into a comic film called Two Friends.

In 1954 he published the first volume of the Neznaika trilogy—in both Russian and Ukrainian—with two subsequent novels in the series appearing in 1958 and 1967. Set within a town in fairyland populated by tiny people called “Mites” who are “no bigger than a pine cone,” the action centers around an impulsive and easily distracted boy whose belief that he knows everything is always getting him into trouble. In 1969, Nosov won a new literary prize for his trilogy, which has since been adapted into numerous film versions, endearing his characters to countless generations of readers as parents who grew up on Neznaika grow up and the books to their own children.

[9A]

23 Nov 2018
Valdemar Poulsen’s 148th Birthday






Today’s Doodle celebrates Valdemar Poulsen, a Danish engineer whose innovations made magnetic sound recording and long-range radio transmission possible. Many modern conveniences, from telephone answering machines to cassettes, even VHS tapes and floppy disks, used the basic technology that he developed by stringing a steel piano wire at a slight angle between two walls. By sliding an electromagnet down the wire he was able to record sound using a microphone and play it back through a telephone earpiece.Born in Copenhagen on this day in 1869, Poulsen studied medicine for a time before joining the Copenhagen Telephone Company as a technician. During his time he invented the telegraphone—or telegrafon in Danish–– and was awarded a patent. The cylindrical electromagnetic phonograph was capable of recording up to thirty minutes of speech. In 1900 he showed off his device at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, where he recorded the voice of Austrian emperor Francis Joseph—still the earliest surviving magnetic recording. After winning a Grand Prix in Paris, he founded the American Telegraphone Company, but sales were sluggish as the device was truly ahead of its time.

That same year brought another breakthrough, a “singing arc” radio that would transmit up to 150 miles. Subsequent improvements of this design, capable of reaching 2,500 miles, were eventually used by the U.S. Navy.

Although he dropped out of medical school, Poulsen was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Leipzig. He was also a Fellow of the Danish Academy of Technical Science and the Swedish Institute for Engineering Research, and won the Gold Medal of the Royal Danish Society of Science and the Danish Government Medal of Merit. A stamp was issued in his honor and the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences established an annual award in his name.

[9A]

22 Nov 2018
Loy Krathong 2018



Today’s Google celebrates Loy Krathong, Thailand’s festival of lights. On the night of the full moon in the 12th lunar month of the traditional Thai calendar, Thailand celebrates the end of rain season with this ritual. The word “loy” means to float, while “krathongs” are small baskets traditionally made from banana tree wood and carefully folded banana leaves, each containing sticks of incense, candles, and an offering of a few coins for the water goddess. It’s also customary to include locks of hair and fingernail clippings to symbolize letting go of the past and any unhappy feelings.

According to legend, the festival was originated by Nang Noppamas, consort to a king. Beauty pageants in her honor remain a traditional part of Loy Krathong celebrations. Others insist that the tradition was inspired by the Khom Loy festival, a Buddhist ritual giving thanks to Ganga, the Goddess of Water. Similar full moon festivals are celebrated at this time of year throughout the region.

In the city of Sukhothai, celebrants flock to the banks of the Yom river, floating their krathongs by the ancient temple in Sukhothai Historical Park. In Bangkok it’s the Chao Phraya River, and in Tak it’s the Ping. Wherever you celebrate, Loy Krathong is a joyous occasion with beautiful lights on the water, fireworks and lanterns in the sky, and a song in the air.

[9A]

16 Nov 2018
44th Anniversary of the Arecibo Message





Forty-four years ago today, a group of scientists gathered at the Arecibo Observatory amidst the tropical forests of Puerto Rico to attempt humankind’s first communication with intelligent life beyond our own planet. Their three-minute radio message—a series of exactly 1,679 binary digits [a multiple of two prime numbers] which could be arranged in a grid 73 rows by 23 columns—was aimed at a cluster of stars 25,000 light years away from earth.

This historic transmission was intended to demonstrate the capabilities of Arecibo’s recently upgraded radio telescope, whose 1000-foot-diameter dish made it the largest and most powerful in the world at the time. "It was strictly a symbolic event, to show that we could do it," said Donald Campbell, Cornell University professor of astronomy, who was a research associate at the Arecibo Observatory at the time. Nevertheless some of those present were moved to tears.

The message itself was devised by a team of researchers from Cornell University led by Dr. Frank Drake—the astronomer and astrophysicist responsible for the Drake Equation, a means of estimating the number of planets hosting extraterrestrial life within the Milky Way galaxy. ‘‘What could we do that would be spectacular?’’ Drake recalled thinking. “We could send a message!’’

Written with the assistance of Carl Sagan, the message itself could be arranged in a rectangular grid of 0s and 1s to form a pictograph representing some fundamental facts of mathematics, human DNA, planet earth’s place in the solar system, and a picture of a human-like figure as well as an image of the telescope itself.

Since the Arecibo Message will take roughly 25,000 years to reach its intended destination [a group of 300,000 stars in the constellation Hercules known as M13], humankind will have to wait a long time for an answer. How long? In the 44 years since it was first transmitted, the message has traveled only 259 trillion miles, only a tiny fraction of the 146,965,638,531,210,240 or so miles to its final destination. During that same time, our understanding of the cosmos has advanced by leaps and bounds, raising hopes that someone may be out there, listening.

[9A]

12 Nov 2018
Alexander Borodin’s 185th Birthday





The son of a Georgian prince, Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a sickly child who went on to create a powerful legacy in two different fields. Today’s Doodle celebrates the boy who grew up to become both a distinguished chemist and one of Russia’s greatest classical composers.

Born in St. Petersburg on this day in 1833, Borodin showed an early aptitude for science, languages, and music. While mastering German, French, and English, he began studying flute at age eight and later learned the violin and violoncello. By the age of 13 he’d already composed a piece for flute and piano — nevertheless, he considered music to be a hobby while his main focus was in the field of science.

At 17, Borodin began his studies at St Petersburg’s Medico-Surgical Academy, delving into botany, zoology, anatomy, and crystallography—but he soon specialized in organic chemistry, earning his doctorate in 1858. He went on to become a professor at his alma mater, conducting research on benzene derivatives and organic synthesis, and the discovery of the aldol reaction. He’s also remembered as a champion of women’s rights, having founded the Women’s Medical School in St. Petersburg, where he taught for many years. Still, the music kept calling him.

In the 1860s he met Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev, a pianist and composer who would become his musical mentor. Borodin soon made him part of a group known as “The Five” [aka “The Mighty Handful”] whose goal was to develop a distinctly Russian style of classical music. Borodin’s incorporation of traditional folk music, and his striking use of harmony in works like “The Steppes of Central Asia,” made him a leading figure of the Romantic era.

Championed by such fellow composers as Liszt, Debussy, and Ravel, Borodin’s work has had a lasting influence on classical music. His unforgettable melodies were adapted for Kismet, the Tony-Award-winning musical that went from Broadway to Hollywood with songs like “Stranger in Paradise.”

[9A]

10 Nov 2018
Elisa Leonida Zamfirescu’s 131st Birthday




“The future of women in engineering is great,” declared a 1912 edition of Romania’s daily newspaper Minerva, reporting the news that “Miss Elisa Leonida passed the last final exam with great success, obtaining a Diploma in Engineering.”

On this day in 1887, Elisa Leonida Zamfirescu was born in the Romanian port city of Galați. After graduating with high marks from the Central School of Girls in Bucharest, she earned a baccalaureate from Mihai Viteazul High School. But when she applied to the School of Highways and Bridges, she was rejected because of her gender.

Undeterred, she applied to the Royal Technical Academy in Berlin, where one of the deans said she would be better off focusing on “Kirche, kinder, and kuche” [Church, children, and cooking]. She persisted in earning her degree in three years to become one of the first woman engineer in Europe.

Becoming the first female member of A.G.I.R. [General Association of Romanian Engineers], eventually running laboratories for the Geological Institute of Romania. Zamfirescu oversaw numerous Economic Studies analyzing Romania’s supply of natural resources like coal, shale, natural gas, chromium, bauxite and copper. She was known for paying special attention to the training of staff and spending long hours mentoring young chemists.

The mother of two daughters, she also taught physics and chemistry at the Pitar Moş School of Girls as well as at the School of Electricians and Mechanics in Bucharest. In 1993, her legacy was commemorated in Romania’s capital city by naming a street in her honor.

[9A]

5 Nov 2018
Michael Dertouzos’ 82nd Birthday



A computer scientist who foresaw how the internet would impact the lives of everyday people, Dertouzos predicted the popularity of personal computers and helped to maximize their potential as director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Laboratory for Computer Science.

Born in Athens, Greece on this day in 1936, Dertouzos was the son of a concert pianist and an admiral in the Greek navy. Upon graduation from Athens College, he attended the University of Arkansas on a Fulbright Scholarship and earned a Ph.D. from MIT, joining the faculty in 1968.

Under Dertouzos’ guidance, the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science grew into a thriving research center employing hundreds of people collaborating on innovations like distributed systems, time-sharing computers, the ArpaNet, and RSA encryption, an algorithm used to ensure secure data transmission. Dertouzos worked to make LCS the North American home of the World Wide Web Consortium [W3C], an alliance of companies promoting the Web's evolution and interconnectivity. Dertouzos recruited Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, to run it.

As early as 1980, Dertouzos was writing about “The Information Marketplace” a concept that he expanded on in his book 1997 book What Will Be: How the New World of Information Will Change Our Lives. “If we strip the hype away,” he observed, “a simple, crisp and inevitable picture emerges -- of an Information Marketplace where people and their computers will buy, sell and freely exchange information and information work.”

Insisting on the importance of bringing “technology into our lives, and not vice versa,” Dertouzos spurred LCS to head up the 1999 Oxygen project in partnership with MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab. The goal of this massive project was to make computers "as natural a part of our environment as the air we breathe."

As reflected in the title of his final book, The Unfinished Revolution: Human-Centered Computers and What They Can Do For Us, Dertouzos’ belief in technology was always grounded in his desire to unleash the full potential of humanity.

[9A]

31 Oct 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.

[9A]

14 July 2020
Bastille Day 2020




Today’s animated Doodle, illustratedby Asnières-sur-Seine-based guest artist François Maumont, celebrates Bastille Day on the 231st anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. On this day in 1789, French revolutionaries charged the Bastille military fortress turned prison on the edge of Paris, an event considered the spark of the French Revolution.

Built in the 1300s as a medieval fortification to guard Paris’s eastern border, by 1789 the Bastille had come to represent the tyranny of the French monarchy. On July 14, a crowd of disaffected citizens besieged the stronghold, and with assistance from a group of sympathetic French Guards, forced the Bastille’s military governor to surrender. Soon, the rallying cry of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” [“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”] was embraced by the French people, and it remains the country’s official motto to this day.

Known in France as la Fête Nationale [the National Holiday] or le 14 Juillet [July 14], Bastille Day was made an official holiday in 1880 and today serves as a worldwide celebration of all things French.

[9A]

14 July 2008
Bastille Day 2008

[9A]

27 Oct 2020
Dr. Stamen Grigorov’s 142nd Birthday




Today’s Doodle celebrates the 142nd birthday of Bulgarian physician and microbiologist Dr. Stamen Grigorov, the first scientist to discover the bacterium essential to the fermentation of yogurt. Grigorov also contributed to the development of the world’s first tuberculosis vaccine.
Stamen Grigorov was born on this day in 1878 in the village of Studen Izvor, located in the Trun region of western Bulgaria. Passionate about science from a young age, he went on to earn a doctorate from the Medical University of Geneva, Switzerland. Following his wedding in 1904, Grigorov returned to the university to work as a research assistant.
As a reminder of home, Grigorov’s wife gifted him with some Bulgarian culinary staples, including yogurt. Intrigued by yogurt’s reputed health benefits, Grigorov decided to inspect it under a microscope. Following thousands of experiments, in 1905 he finally found what he was looking for: the rod-shaped microorganism that causes yogurt’s fermentation. The bacterium was later renamed Lactobacillus bulgaricus in honor of Grigorov’s home country.
Later that year, Grigorov took a position as chief physician at a local hospital in his hometown of Trun. In 1906, he released a groundbreaking paper demonstrating the first use of penicillin fungi against tuberculosis. He continued this research and worked as a doctor throughout the rest of his life, saving thousands of lives along the way.
In honor of Grigorov’s legacy, his home village of Studen Izvor today houses one of the world’s only museums of yogurt.

[9A]

27 Oct 2020
Dr. Stamen Grigorov’s 142nd Birthday




Today’s Doodle celebrates the 142nd birthday of Bulgarian physician and microbiologist Dr. Stamen Grigorov, the first scientist to discover the bacterium essential to the fermentation of yogurt. Grigorov also contributed to the development of the world’s first tuberculosis vaccine.

Stamen Grigorov was born on this day in 1878 in the village of Studen Izvor, located in the Trun region of western Bulgaria. Passionate about science from a young age, he went on to earn a doctorate from the Medical University of Geneva, Switzerland. Following his wedding in 1904, Grigorov returned to the university to work as a research assistant.

As a reminder of home, Grigorov’s wife gifted him with some Bulgarian culinary staples, including yogurt. Intrigued by yogurt’s reputed health benefits, Grigorov decided to inspect it under a microscope. Following thousands of experiments, in 1905 he finally found what he was looking for: the rod-shaped microorganism that causes yogurt’s fermentation. The bacterium was later renamed Lactobacillus bulgaricus in honor of Grigorov’s home country.

Later that year, Grigorov took a position as chief physician at a local hospital in his hometown of Trun. In 1906, he released a groundbreaking paper demonstrating the first use of penicillin fungi against tuberculosis. He continued this research and worked as a doctor throughout the rest of his life, saving thousands of lives along the way.

In honor of Grigorov’s legacy, his home village of Studen Izvor today houses one of the world’s only museums of yogurt.

[9A]

27 October 2012
Sugarloaf Cable Car's 100th Anniversary





The Sugarloaf Cable Car [Portuguese: Bondinho do Pão de Açúcar] is a cableway system in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The first part runs between Praia Vermelha and Morro da Urca [at 722 feet [220 m]. from where the second rises to the summit of the 1,299-foot [396 m] Sugarloaf Mountain.

The cableway was envisioned by the engineer Augusto Ferreira Ramos in 1908 who sought support from well-known figures of Rio's high society to promote its construction. Opened in 1912, it was only the third cableway to be built in the world. In 1972 the cars were updated, growing from a capacity of 22 to 75, and in 1979 it featured in an action scene for the James Bond film Moonraker. Today it is used by approximately 2,500 visitors every day. The cable cars run every 30 minutes, between 8 am and 10 pm.

[9A]

22 Oct 2012
Abu Simbel





Abu Simbel is two massive rock-cut temples in the village of Abu Simbel, Aswan Governorate, Upper Egypt, near the border with Sudan. They are situated on the western bank of Lake Nasser, about 230 km [140 mi] southwest of Aswan [about 300 km [190 mi] by road]. The complex is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the "Nubian Monuments", which run from Abu Simbel downriver to Philae [near Aswan]. The twin temples were originally carved out of the mountainside in the 13th century BC, during the 19th Dynasty reign of the Pharaoh Ramesses II. They serve as a lasting monument to the king Ramesses II. His wife Nefertari and children can be seen in smaller figures by his feet, considered to be of lesser importance and were not given the same position of scale. This commemorates his victory at the Battle of Kadesh. Their huge external rock relief figures have become iconic.

The complex was relocated in its entirety in 1968 under the supervision of a Polish archaeologist, Kazimierz Michałowski, from the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology University of Warsaw, on an artificial hill made from a domed structure, high above the Aswan High Dam reservoir. The relocation of the temples was necessary or they would have been submerged during the creation of Lake Nasser, the massive artificial water reservoir formed after the building of the Aswan High Dam on the River Nile. The project was carried out as part of the UNESCO Nubian Salvage Campaign.

[9A]

29 Oct 2012
Republic Day Turkey 2012

[9A]

1 Nov 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".

[9A]

2 Nov 2012
Odysseas Elitis' 101st Birthday





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

[9A]

3 Nov 2012
Samuil Marshak's 125th Birthday



Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak was a Russian and Soviet writer of Jewish origin, translator and poet who wrote for both children and adults. He translated the sonnets and some other of the works of William Shakespeare, English poetry [including poems for children], and poetry from other languages. Maxim Gorky proclaimed Marshak to be "the founder of Russia's [Soviet] children's literature."

[9A]

8 Nov 2012
Bram Stoker's 165th Birthday



Bram Stoker created a legendary villain when he penned his 19th century story Dracula. Few other characters have haunted popular culture for generations as much as the eponymous Count Dracula, whose fanged face has long been a staple of haunted houses and Halloween costumes. He's also featured in at least 200 feature films since the dawn of cinema, played by such acclaimed actors as Bela Lugosi in 1931 and Gary Oldman in 1992.

An epistolary novel, Dracula is innovative in that it is a story told through diary entries, transcribed phonograph recordings, dictated essays, scholarly articles, records, reciepts, and news stories. In this way, Stoker paints a vivid picture not only of the horror of Dracula's evil power, but of the fascinating Victorian England which he terrorized.

[9A]

9 Nov 2012
Paul Abadie's 200th Birthday





Paul Abadie was a French architect and building restorer. He is considered a central representative of French historicism. He was the son of architect Paul Abadie Sr..

Abadie worked on the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris, Église Sainte-Croix of Bordeaux, Saint-Pierre of Angoulême and Saint-Front of Périgueux. He won the competition in 1873 to design the Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on Montmartre in Paris, and saw construction commence on it, though he died long before its completion in 1914.

[9A]

11 Nov 2012
Roberto Matta's 101st Birthday




Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren, better known as Roberto Matta, was one of Chile's best-known painters and a seminal figure in 20th century abstract expressionist and surrealist art.

[9A]

3 Dec 2012
Hryhorii Skovoroda's 290 Birthday




Gregory Skovoroda, also Hryhorii Skovoroda, or Grigory Skovoroda was a philosopher of Ukrainian Cossack origin, who wrote primarily in the Sloboda Ukraine dialect of the Ukrainian language. He was also a poet, teacher and composer of liturgical music. His significant influence on his contemporaries and succeeding generations and his way of life were universally regarded as Socratic. He was often called a "Socrates." Skovoroda's work contributed to the cultural heritage of both modern-day Ukraine and Russia, both countries claiming him as a native son.

[9A]

7 Dec 2012
Día de las Velitas



Little Candles Day is a widely observed traditional holiday in Colombia. It is celebrated on December 7 on the eve of the Immaculate Conception, which is a public holiday in Colombia. This day is the unofficial start of the Christmas season in the country.

On this night, people place candles and paper lanterns on windowsills, balconies, porches, sidewalks, streets, parks and squares; in short, everywhere they can be seen, in honor of the Virgin Mary and her Immaculate Conception. On December 8 it is customary for houses to hoist a white flag with the image of the Virgin Mary all day. They also hold numerous events, from firework shows to competitions.

[9A]

8 Dec 2012
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson´s 180th Birthday





Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnsonwas a Norwegian writer who received the 1903 Nobel Prize in Literature "as a tribute to his noble, magnificent and versatile poetry, which has always been distinguished by both the freshness of its inspiration and the rare purity of its spirit", becoming the first Norwegian Nobel laureate. He was a prolific polemicist and extremely influential in Norwegian public life and Scandinavian cultural debate.

Bjørnson is considered to be one of The Four Greats [De Fire Store] among Norwegian writers, the others being Henrik Ibsen, Jonas Lie, and Alexander Kielland. Bjørnson is also celebrated for his lyrics to the Norwegian National Anthem, "Ja, vi elsker dette landet". Composer Fredrikke Waaler based a composition for voice and piano [Spinnersken] on text by Bjørnson.

[9A]

10 Dec 2012
Ada Lovelace's 197th Birthday




Augusta Ada King, countess of Lovelace, along with her counterpart Charles Babbage, were pioneers in computing long before the first computer was built. Despite being an uncommon pedagogy for women, Ada was educated in mathematics because her mother hoped would mitigate in Ada her father's, Lord Byron's, penchant for poetry and mania [it didn’t].

While Babbage drew up designs for the first general-purpose computer, which he called the Analytic Engine, he only imagined it would be a powerful calculator. Lovelace, however, anticipated the much more impressive possibilities for such a machine. She realized the engine could represent not just numbers, but generic entities like words and music. This intellectual leap is the foundation of how we experience computers today, from the words on this screen to the colors and shapes in this doodle.

In 1843, Ada published extensive notes on the Analytic Engine which included the first published sequence of operations for a computer, which she would have input to the Analytic Engine using punch cards. It is this program for calculating Bernoulli numbers which leads some to consider Ada Lovelace the world’s first computer programmer, as well as a visionary of the computing age.

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12 Dec 2012
50th Anniversary of Bonne Nuit les Petits


Good Night little OnesrBonne Nuit les Petits] is a television series French youth in black and white, created by Claude Laydu and his wife Christine and broadcast from December 10 , 1962 in early evening. 568 five-minute episodes and five specials were produced between 1962 and 1973.

It went on to be developed further and broadcast on various channels until the present.

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13 Dec 2012
Luiz Gonzaga's 100th Birthday




Luiz Gonzaga do Nascimento, Sr. was a Brazilian singer, songwriter, musician and poet and one of the most influential figures of Brazilian popular music in the twentieth century. He has been credited for having presented the rich universe of Northeastern musical genres to all of Brazil, having created the musical genre baião and has been called a "revolutionary" by Antônio Carlos Jobim. According to Caetano Veloso, he was the first significant cultural event with mass appeal in Brazil. Luiz Gonzaga received the Shell prize for Brazilian Popular Music in 1984 and was only the fourth artist to receive this prize after Pixinguinha, Antônio Carlos Jobim and Dorival Caymmi. The Luiz Gonzaga Dam was named in his honor.

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14 Dec 2012
Xul Solar's 125th Birthday






Xul Solar was the adopted name of Oscar Agustín Alejandro Schulz Solari, Argentine painter, sculptor, writer, and inventor of imaginary languages.

Solar's paintings are mainly sculptures, often using striking contrasts and bright colours, typically in relatively small formats. His visual style seems equidistant between Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee on the one hand and Marc Chagall on the other. He also worked in some extremely unorthodox artistic media, such as modifying pianos, including a version with three rows of keys.

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18 Dec 2012
120th Anniversary of the Nutcracker Ballet






The Nutcracker is a classical ballet in two acts. It is based on E.T.A. Hoffmann's 1816 fairy tale The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. It tells the story of a little girl who goes to the Land of Sweets on Christmas Eve. Ivan Vsevolozhsky and Marius Petipa adapted Hoffmann's story for the ballet. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote the music. Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov designed the dances. The Nutcracker was first performed at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, on 18 December 1892 to a modest success and rarely seen the next years.

In 1940, Walt Disney used some of the Nutcracker music in his animated movie Fantasia, which led to an interest in the ballet. Interest grew when George Balanchine's The Nutcracker was televised in the late 1950s. The ballet has been performed in many different places since then. Before the first performance, Tchaikovsky took some numbers from the ballet to form the Nutcracker Suite. This work was a great success on the concert stage, and is still played today.

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20 Dec 2012
200th Anniversary of Grimm's Fairy Tales





The Brothers Grimm created countless folktales in their lifetime, but we chose to focus on just one-Red Riding Hood. Our initial concepts suggested an opportunity to try a comic book format where the viewer could pan through the story themselves. Ours is a contemporary take on the tale with flattened designs and an alternative ending!

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21 Dec 2012
End of the Mayan Calendar





Mayans were advanced mathematicians and astronomers who calculated the cycles of the moon and sun. They had very specific ways of measuring time, and one of these forms is the Long Count system, in which each year has 18 months with 20 days. The system also includes other units like the Katun, equivalent to 20 years in our calendar, and a Baktun, which equals to 394 years. The importance of reaching the 13th Baktun, is that, unlike as what happens in our calendar, a 14th Baktun does not follow. The count returns to zero. Unlike all the disaster stories that you have probably heard, at the end of the 13th Baktun, as every time Sunday ends in our calendar, Monday comes again and thus begins a new week. Those who have studied the issue, explain that this is because the way their scheduling system works, and although it represents the end of a cycle, it doesn’t have a catastrophic meaning. Today’s doodle represents the actual date, December 21 2012, as well as the 13th Baktun, forming the word * Google *. We hope you enjoy this doodle as much as we do, and that the beginning of the next Baktun be very prosperous for everyone.

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22 Dec 2012
Srinivasa Ramanujan's 125th Birthday




Srinivasa Ramanujan was an Indian mathematician who lived during the British Rule in India. Though he had almost no formal training in pure mathematics, he made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions, including solutions to mathematical problems then considered unsolvable. Ramanujan initially developed his own mathematical research in isolation: according to Hans Eysenck: "He tried to interest the leading professional mathematicians in his work, but failed for the most part. What he had to show them was too novel, too unfamiliar, and additionally presented in unusual ways; they could not be bothered".

Seeking mathematicians who could better understand his work, in 1913 he began a postal partnership with the English mathematician G. H. Hardy at the University of Cambridge, England. Recognizing Ramanujan's work as extraordinary, Hardy arranged for him to travel to Cambridge. In his notes, Hardy commented that Ramanujan had produced groundbreaking new theorems, including some that "defeated me completely; I had never seen anything in the least like them before", and some recently proven but highly advanced results.

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22 Dec 2012
Herman Potočnik's 120th Birthday






Herman Potočnik was a Slovene rocket engineer and pioneer of astronautics. He is chiefly remembered for his work addressing the long-term human habitation of space.

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28 Dec 2012
Leonardo Torres Quevedo's 160th Birthday






Leonardo Torres y Quevedo was a Spanish civil engineer and mathematician of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With his Telekine, Torres-Quevedo created wireless remote-control operation principles. He was also a famous speaker of Esperanto.

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2 Jan 2013
Barış Manço's 70th Birthday





Mehmet Barış Manço, better known by his stage name Barış Manço, was a Turkish rock musician, singer, songwriter, composer, actor, television producer and show host. Beginning his musical career while attending Galatasaray High School, he was a pioneer of rock music in Turkey and one of the founders of the Anatolian rock genre.

Manço composed around 200 songs and is among the best-selling and most awarded Turkish artists to date. Many of his songs were translated into a variety of languages including English, French, Japanese, Greek, Italian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Persian, Hebrew, Urdu, Arabic, and German, among others. Through his TV program, 7'den 77'ye ["From 7 to 77"], Manço traveled the world and visited many countries on the globe. He remains one of the most popular public figures of Turkey.

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13 Jan 2013
Aleko Konstantinov's 150th birthday



Aleko Konstantinov was a Bulgarian writer, best known for his character Bay Ganyo, one of the most popular characters in Bulgarian fiction.

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17 Jan 2013
Cecilia May Gibbs' 136th Birthday





Cecilia May Gibbs was an Australian children's author, illustrator, and cartoonist. She is best known for her gumnut babies [also known as "bush babies" or "bush fairies"], and the book Snugglepot and Cuddlepie.

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21 Jan 2013
Emma Gad's 161th Birthday






Emma Gad, born Emma Halkier, was a Danish writer and socialite who wrote plays and books that were often satirical. Although she was a prolific writer, many of her works fell into obscurity after her death. One work that remained popular was Takt og Tone, a book of etiquette she wrote in old age.

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13 April 2021
151st anniversary of The Metropolitan Museum of Art








In honor of a storied legacy of cultural enrichment for New Yorkers and international communities alike, today’s Doodle celebrates the 151st Anniversary of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by a group of American citizens—businessmen and financiers as well as leading artists and thinkers of the day—who wanted to create a museum to bring art and art education to the American people. On this day in 1870, the museum was officially incorporated and soon after acquired its first work of art: a Roman sarcophagus.

The Met has come quite a long way from that first showing to become New York’s largest art museum, with a permanent collection of over 1.5 million objects, spanning over 5,000 years from nearly every corner of the globe. A sampling of the many works of art found at The Met today are depicted in today’s Doodle artwork—including a Byzantine floor mosaic from 500-550 A.D., the armor of German Emperor Ferdinand I from the 16th century, an intricate traditional Lakota/Teton Sioux beaded dress, and the painting "Self-Portrait" by Samuel Joseph Brown, Jr. from the 1940s.

Whether you're a Met regular or planning your first trip to the Museum, be sure to visit a certain blue ceramic hippopotamus from Egypt’s Middle Kingdom nicknamed “William.” An unofficial mascot of The Met, he might soon become your favorite part of the collection.

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1 Apr 2017
Payut Ngaokrachang’s 88th birthday







Today’s Doodle celebrates renowned Thai cartoonist and animation pioneer Payut Ngaokrachang with a depiction of one of his best-known animations, and Thai cinema's first cel-animated feature film, “The Adventure of Sudsakorn.”

Released in 1979, “Sudsakorn” was one of Thailand’s earliest full-length animations, and was based on author Sudthornpu’s book Pra Apai Manee. It follows the exploits of the boy hero as he battles with mythical creatures and other dangerous adversaries. The animation was created on a very tight budget, and the innovative Payut was said to have crafted some of his movie-making equipment using discarded military machinery to keep costs low.