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Tanabata 2017



Today’s Doodle honors Tanabata, the Japanese summer festival marked on the lunar calendar where two star-crossed lovers – literally, the stars Altair and Vega – intersect.

The legend behind the festival is romantic and grand. Orihime (Vega) was a gifted weaver, much to the delight of her father, the sky emperor. However, she fell in love with the shepherd Hikoboshi (Altair) and, distracted by one another, they neglected their celestial duties. As punishment, the sky emperor exiled the lovers to opposite ends of the Milky Way. All year, they must work diligently apart from one another – save for the seventh day of the seventh month, when the sky emperor allows them to briefly reunite.

To mark the occasion, long celebratory streamers are hung in public spaces. People also write down wishes on tanzaku – small strips of colored paper – and attach these to bamboo branches in hopes that the star-crossed lovers will grant them. Traditionally, the wishes were for improved weaving and handwriting skills, but wish-seekers today ask for favors of all kinds.

In the days leading up to Tanabata, sky-gazers wistfully observe the journey of the two stars through the heavens, hoping for clear weather so that Orihime and Hikoboshi might meet yet again.

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One version of this story was that the children shoo pigeons and doves into the sky, so their wings might form a bridge for the lovers to cross and meet briefly.

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Käthe Kollwitz's 150th Birthday



Käthe Kollwitz is considered one of the most important artists of modern age. Born in 1867 in what now is known as Kaliningrad, Russia, she moved to Munich as a young woman to study art and painting. She quickly began to focus on other mediums, working with a wide variety of them – Kollwitz delved into drawing, etching, lithography, printmaking and sculpture. Even though her work is diverse in technique, one thing is consistent: it is filled with emotion and portrays universal human experiences.

Her art also expressed Kollwitz's views of society, and she quickly became recognized as a humanitarian and advocate for social justice. Her expressive aesthetic language and powerful themes helped expand frontiers for female artists in Germany and the world.

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag – Happy 150th birthday, Käthe!

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660th Anniversary of Charles Bridge



On this day in 1357, construction began on the Charles Bridge, Prague’s oldest stone bridge, and one of the Czech capital’s most popular tourist destinations. Round the clock, visitors, vendors and locals alike cross the 1,700-ft. expanse from the east bank to the west, taking in views of the Vltava River.

King Charles IV commissioned architect Peter Parler to build the bridge, which was completed in 1402. Originally called the Stone Bridge, it took on the monarch’s moniker centuries later, around 1870. The low-lying medieval structure is comprised of 16 shallow arches and three Gothic towers, and lined with 30 Baroque-style statues, initially made of sandstone. According to legend, during construction, masons added a secret ingredient to the mortar that they thought would make it stronger: eggs!

Today’s Doodle pays tribute to Prague’s iconic masterpiece with an animation that shows the majesty of Charles Bridge by day and by night.

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Eva Ekeblad’s 293rd Birthday



Today we celebrate Eva Ekeblad’s 293rd birthday. The Swedish scientist brought potatoes, then a greenhouse curiosity, to the people. Eva discovered the starch was humble but mighty – potatoes could be ground into flour or distilled into spirits. Her discovery helped reduce famine in years to come.

For her scientific and delicious work, Eva Ekeblad became the first woman elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1748. She was truly a pioneer - the next woman recognized in those ranks would come 203 years later.

Today we we honor Eva Ekeblad's ingenuity and her scientific achievements. Happy birthday, Eva!

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Eiko Ishioka’s 79th Birthday



Earning her an Oscar, a Grammy, and two Tony nominations, Eiko Ishioka’s work had a way of taking center stage no matter the medium. From print ads and album covers to costumes for film, theater, and the Olympics, the iconic Japanese designer did it all during her decades-long career — often unlike anyone before.

Born and raised in Tokyo, Ishioka pursued a career in graphic design at a time when there were few women in the industry. Despite the challenges she faced, Ishioka pushed through boundaries both socially and artistically. Her early print ads evoked many of the same themes that would later define her costume design: bold, surreal, and consistently unexpected.

Ishioka went on to earn global recognition by designing Academy Award-winning costumes for Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 film Dracula, a Grammy-winning cover for Miles Davis’ 1986 album Tutu, and Tony-nominated sets and costumes for Broadway’s M. Butterfly. She worked closely with director Tarsem Singh on several films throughout her career, including 2012’s Mirror Mirror.

Showcasing some of Ishioka’s famous designs from Singh’s 2006 movie The Fall, today’s slideshow Doodle celebrates her revolutionary work on what would have been her 79th birthday.

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Tayeb Salih’s 88th Birthday



“There are many horizons that must be visited, fruit that must be plucked, books read, and white pages in the scrolls of life to be inscribed with vivid sentences in a bold hand,” claims the narrator of Tayeb Salih’s most critically acclaimed novel, Seasons of Migration to the North.

First published in Arabic in 1967, Seasons of Migration to the North was an international hit and is considered a national treasure of Sudan. It was eventually translated into 20 languages, and in 2011 it was deemed the most important Arabic novel of the 20th century by the Arab Literary Academy.

Before his literary successes, Salih was born to a poor family in a village in northern Sudan in 1929. He studied in the capital, Khartoum, before moving to England four years before his country gained its independence in 1956. After leaving Sudan, Salih spent much of his life living in various cities across Europe and the Arab world, but his work always found a firm foundation in his homeland -- mostly the fictional village of Wad Hamid.

Today’s doodle honors his sense of a setting, incorporating recurring elements from some of Salih’s most popular stories, like Seasons, The Wedding of Al Zein (1962), and A Handful of Dates (1964). Through Salih’s window we can see a boy and his beloved grandfather, the shade of a palm tree, and the river Nile.

Happy 88th birthday, Salih!

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Bastille Day 2017



When Louis XVI asked a French duke if the storming of Bastille was a revolt on the evening of 14 July 1789, the duke replied by saying, "No, sire, a revolution."

The revolutionary cornerstones of “liberté, égalité, fraternité” color the minds of many today as we celebrate the 228th anniversary of Bastille Day (“La Fête Nationale”) in France and across the world.

In addition to celebratory outdoor picnics and fireworks, the day is customarily marked with Bals des Pompiers, or Fireman’s Balls. For artist Louis Thomas, the holiday represents more than just fireworks. He was inspired to depict a symbol of culture and resilience — the French cafe terrace — where people gather.

Europe’s largest military parade marches down the Champs-Elysees from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde today, displaying France’s rich history, national unity, diversity and pride. Whether you choose to celebrate with a festive outing or a moment of reflection, today’s Google Doodle wishes Bon anniversaire to France

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Gilberto Bosques Saldívar’s 125th Birthday



Today marks the 125th birthday of Gilberto Bosques Saldívar, the diplomat known as the “Mexican Schindler” who is said to have saved 40,000 lives during WWII while serving as Mexico’s Consul General in France.

Born in Chiautla de Tapia, Puebla, Saldívar made a career of looking after the good of the public from young adulthood: serving as a teacher, government newspaper director, and ultimately, a public servant. In 1939, he was sent to France to serve as Mexico’s Consul General.

After fleeing the Nazi occupation of Paris in 1940, Saldívar received support from the Mexican government to establish a consulate in southern France. He rented a castle and holiday camp in Marseilles at which he hid Jews and Spanish Civil War refugees, maintaining that they were protected under international law in what he considered a Mexican territory. He land his team issued Visas and chartered travel for tens of thousands of wishing to escape to Mexico until he was arrested by Nazi forces. After one year of imprisonment, he continued his career in public service for the remainder of his life.

Today we celebrate Saldívar’s remarkable courage and moral conviction with a Doodle that illustrates the peace his actions made possible for the lives of so many.

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Marshall McLuhan’s 106th Birthday



Long before we started looking to our screens for all the answers, Marshall McLuhan saw the internet coming — and predicted just how much impact it would have. A Canadian philosopher and professor who specialized in media theory, McLuhan came to prominence in the 1960s, just as TV was becoming part of everyday life. At the center of his thinking was the idea that society is shaped by technology and the way information is shared.

Today’s Doodle, which celebrates the visionary’s 106th birthday, illustrates this theory by showing how McLuhan viewed human history. He saw it through the lens of 4 distinct eras: the acoustic age, the literary age, the print age, and the electronic age. His first major book, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), popularized the term “global village” — the idea that technology brings people together and allows everyone the same access to information.

In Understanding Media (1964), McLuhan further examined the transformative effects of technology and coined his famous phrase “The medium is the message.” He believed that the way in which someone receives information is more influential than the information itself. Throughout the '60s and '70s, McLuhan made frequent TV appearances to share his theories with both followers and skeptics.

Decades later, we honor the man whose prophetic vision of the “computer as a research and communication instrument” has undeniably become a reality.