Stupid Guest Tricks

Duke Kahanamoku’s 125th Birthday



The story of Duke Kahanamoku--the Hawaiian who, in 1912, first drew the world’s collective gaze upon the art of surfing--reads like mythology. Born in Honolulu in 1890, he is credited in over a dozen feature films, surfed the world’s most imposing swells before Californians knew what surfing was, won five Olympic medals in swimming and was elected sheriff of his beloved home county thirteen times.

The Big Kahuna was a tremendous athlete, to be sure, and by all accounts staggeringly cool, but he also had a proclivity for heroics--one morning in 1925, just as dawn crept into the summer sky over Newport Beach, a 40-foot fishing vessel called the Thelma found herself in the grip of a sudden and violent squall. Waves hammered the Thelma’s deck, and the vessel succumbed to the thrashing breakers, stranding its crew in the surf. The Duke, who watched from the shore as he prepared for that morning’s ride, rushed headlong into the maelstrom with his surfboard and, along with three friends, managed to wrest twelve men from the clutches of the Pacific.

Despite his charisma on the screen and two decades of Olympic triumphs, it is perhaps for moments like these--for his character, his ease in the water, his deep and unending love of Hawaii and her oceans--that Duke Kahanamoku is remembered most. He brought surfing to the world, and by force of his magnetism and singularly Hawaiian spirit helped The Islands achieve statehood. Today, on his 125th birthday, Matt Cruickshank recalls the legend of the “Ambassador of Aloha” with a Doodle of his iconic, 16-foot wooden surfboard and his warm, blithe smile. “Most importantly,” a reverent surfer remarks in a documentary about The Duke, “he was pure Hawaiian”.

Regarding Qixi: The version I read about concerned the daughter of either a wealthy man or a prince; she fell in love with a cowherd. The girl's father stated that the cowherd had to continue caring for his(father's) livestock after marriage, and his daughter must always work at her loom. Both were very skilled in their respective occupations. After their marriage, however, the couple spent so much time together that the cattle suffered from lack of care, and the loom was left unused. After warning the couple several times, and getting only short-lived returning to work, the last time the father caught the young couple paying more attention to each other than to their work, he banished them to the sky, putting the Milky Way between them to keep them apart. But there is one night when the lovers call on the crows and magpies to fly into the sky and build a bridge with their wings for the lovers to walk across so they can be together briefly. Children are actually encouraged to chase and throw stones at crows and magpies to get them to fly to the heavens so the lovers can reunite. There is a part of the Milky Way where there appears to be a gap, and it is believed that this is from the crows' and magpies' wing bridge; as their wings are black that's why there appears to be a gap.

La Tomatina 70th Anniversary



All around Buñol on the last Wednesday of every August, storefronts are shuttered. Trucks hauling thousands of pounds of tomatoes grown and harvested specifically for this day head for Plaza del Pueblo, the town square, where a Spanish ham is suspended from the top of a greased pole. What ensues once this ham is successfully retrieved (or not retrieved, as is often the case, by a succession of hapless climbers) is arguably the world’s largest food fight: La Tomatina. For a moment of blissful, heartwarmingly innocuous chaos, tens of thousands of visitors to this small Spanish town indulge a universal childhood fantasy and shower each other with tomatoes in a wild, watery mess.

For its 70th anniversary, Doodler Nate Swinehart captures the energy of today’s festivities with an animation awash in splattered tomatoes and brimming with the youthful delight of its characters.

Halet Çambel’s 99th Birthday



So much of the world’s crucial history is trapped under ground, waiting for the right person to dig it up and interpret it for the betterment of humankind. Archaeologists like Turkey’s Halet Çambel help us understand how our planet’s story has unfolded so we can use history’s lessons to create a better future.

After earning her doctorate from the University of Istanbul in 1940, Halet fought tirelessly for the advancement of archaeology. She helped preserve some of Turkey’s most important archaeological sites near the Ceyhan River and established an outdoor museum at Karatepe. There, she broke ground on one of Earth’s oldest known civilizations by discovering a Phoenician alphabet tablet that unlocked the code to Hittite hieroglyphics. Her work won her a Prince Claus Award for preserving Turkish cultural heritage.

Start of the 2015 US Open Tennis Championship



To usher in the 37th US Open played at Flushing Meadows in Queens, New York, we thought we’d imagine what our letters would look like playing tennis. Fortunately, Serena Williams can’t hit a through-body lob like today’s “O”, but she could be the first woman to win a Grand Slam since Poison had a number-one single. Here’s to a great tradition in American sports and the possibility of a historic moment at Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Google's New Logo

It takes a while to run.



Evolving the Google Identity

Google logo history

Joan Aiken’s 91st Birthday



Every so often an extraordinarily prolific author comes along to win the hearts of a generation. Writer Joan Aiken was one of those authors. At the age of 16, she finished her first full-length novel. She was destined for great things.

Born into a family of writers, Joan emerged with a voice all her own, publishing more than one hundred books over the course of her career. Her stunning volume of writing includes children’s books, thrillers, and literary works modeled after the fictional world created by Jane Austen. It’s hard enough to write for a single audience, but Joan was comfortable writing a range of stories that everyone could enjoy.

Tahia Halim’s 96th Birthday



Today's doodle celebrates the 96th birthday of Egyptian painter, Tahia Halim, who passed away in 2003. Halim was born in 1919, and grew up inside the Egyptian Royal Palace of King Faoud. As a young girl she fell in love with painting, and paused her formal education in order to study with master painters in Egypt and France.

Halim painted many of her best known pieces in the 1960s, which depict the Nubian people of and culture of the Nile in Southern Egypt and Northern Sudan. She was first sent there to document the process of building the Aswan High Dam on the Nile, which flooded much of Nuba and forced the relocation of over 100,000 Nubians. She was fascinated by the Nubian women and scenes of old Nuba. She tried to capture much of that world in her paintings and drawings before it was changed irrecoverably by the new dam and resulting Nasser Lake.

Many paintings since that trip depict the Nile, boats, and Nubian village people—especially local women—going about their daily work. Figures and gestures are reduced to simple, evocative forms that encapsulate the beauty and vibrancy of the Southern Nile. Despite the poverty she found in Nuba, Halim's work reflects the rich colors and authenticity of the Nubian people, their architecture and their daily life. Her folkloric impressionist style and signature brush strokes during that period captured the unique and intangible characteristics of the Egyptian people, and honored the ancient Egyptian spirit that is still living within people in Nuba.

Google Gameday Doodle Kickoff

22nd anniversary of the official recognition of French traditional bread