Google Doodles

[Gopher Gary]

Today's Google Doodle is Eunice Newton Foote's 204th Birthday



Today’s slideshow Doodle celebrates the 204th birthday of American scientist and women’s rights activist Eunice Newton Foote. Foote was the first person to discover the greenhouse effect and its role in the warming of Earth’s climate. Click through today’s Doodle to explore the process of Foote’s scientific discovery!

Foote was born on this day in 1819 in Connecticut. She attended the Troy Female Seminary, a school that encouraged students to attend science lectures and participate in chemistry labs. While science became a lifelong passion for Foote, she also dedicated time to campaigning for women’s rights. In 1848, Foote attended the first Woman’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls. She was the fifth signatory of the Declaration of Sentiments—a document that demanded equality for women in social and legal status.

At this time, women were widely shunned from the scientific community. Undeterred, Foote conducted experiments on her own. After placing mercury thermometers in glass cylinders, she discovered that the cylinder containing carbon dioxide experienced the most significant heating effect in the sun. Foote was ultimately the first scientist to make the connection between rising carbon dioxide levels and the warming of the atmosphere.

After Foote published her findings, she produced her second study on atmospheric static electricity in the journal Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. These were the first two physics studies published by a woman in the US. Around 1856, a male scientist presented her work at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Those discussions led to further experiments which uncovered what is known as the Greenhouse effect—when gasses like carbon dioxide trap heat from the sun, the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere gradually rises.

Today, scientists all over the world are advancing climate science thanks to the foundation that Foote laid.

Happy Birthday, Eunice Newton Foote!

[renaeden]

I went to school with a girl named Eunice. Unique name.

[odeon]

I went to school with a girl named Eunice. Unique name.

Rare, these days.

[Gopher Gary]

Today's Google Doodle is Altina Schinasi's 116th Birthday.



Today’s Doodle celebrates the life of Altina “Tina” Schinasi, an American artist, designer, and inventor most known for designing the Harlequin eyeglass frame — known today as the widely popular “cat-eye” eyeglass frame. Schinasi also patented several other inventions throughout her career and produced documentaries.

Schinasi was born on this day in 1907 in Manhattan, New York to immigrant parents. Her mother was a native of Salonica (then in the Ottoman Empire) and her father was a Sephardic Jewish Turk. After graduating high school, Schinasi studied painting in Paris, which sparked her appreciation for the arts. Once back in the US, she studied art at The Art Students League in New York and took a position as a window dresser for multiple stores on Fifth Avenue. During this time, she found herself working with and learning from prominent artists she admired such as Salvador Dalí and George Grosz.

Schinasi’s time working as a window display designer inspired the creation of her now-famous “cat-eye” frames. At the window display of a nearby optician's office, she noticed that the only option for women’s glasses tended to be round frames with mundane designs. This observation inspired Schinasi to create a different option for women, mimicking the shape of the Harlequin masks she saw people wearing in Venice, Italy during the Carnevale festival. She found the pointed edges flattering to the face and started by cutting paper demos of her innovative frame design.

Schinasi approached all of the major manufacturers with her creation — all of which rejected her, claiming her design was too edgy. But, she didn’t give up. She struck luck when a local shop owner believed in her vision and asked for an exclusive design for six months. To their delight, the Harlequin glasses quickly became a success, earning Schansi much publicity. By the late 1930s and through the 1940s, Harlequin glasses became an overwhelming fashion accessory among women in the US. Schinasi was awarded the Lord & Taylor American Design Award in 1939 for her invention, and was recognized by major magazines including Vogue and Life.

Already an established and successful artist, Schinasi also ventured into the world of film. In 1960, she produced a documentary about the celebrated artist and her former teacher George Grosz titled George Grosz' Interregnum. It was nominated for an Academy Award and won first place at the Venice Film Festival.

In her later years, Schinasi did not slow down. She wrote and published her memoir The Road I Have Traveled (1995), volunteered as an art therapist, and even invented unique portrait chairs and benches which she called Chairacters.

Today, almost 100 years after its inception, Altina’s cat-eye design continues its influence in fashion accessory trends worldwide.

Happy birthday to the woman who was a visionary in more ways than one!

[Gopher Gary]

Today's Google Doodle is 2023 Women's World Cup Finals

[Gopher Gary]

Today's Google Doodle is Celebrating the first landing on the moon’s south pole!



Today’s Doodle celebrates the first ever landing on the moon’s south pole! The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota Range, Andhra Pradesh, India on July 14, 2023 and successfully touched down near the lunar south pole region on August 23, 2023. Moon landings are no easy feat. Previously, only the United States, China, and the former Soviet Union have completed soft landings on the moon — but no country has made it to the southern pole region before now.

The moon’s south pole has been an area of heightened interest for space explorers as they suspected the existence of ice deposits located inside permanently shadowed craters. Chandrayaan-3 has now confirmed this prediction to be true! This ice offers the potential of critical resources for future astronauts such as air, water, and even hydrogen rocket fuel.

And what were Chandrayaan-3’s first thoughts after achieving this historic feat?: “India, I reached my destination and you too!” Back on Earth, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated scientists from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) stating, "The success belongs to all of humanity… It will help moon missions by other countries in the future. I'm confident that all countries in the world can all aspire for the moon and beyond. The sky is not the limit!”

Congratulations to the Chandrayaan-3 space mission! We’re over the moon for you!

 

[Gopher Gary]

Today's Google Doodle is Labor Day 2023.



Today’s Doodle honors employees in the United States and Canada and those who fought and those that continue to advocate for better working conditions. In early September of 1882, the first commemoration of Labor Day took place in the form of a sprawling parade in New York City.

In the 19th century, trade and labor unions rallied and organized strikes to push for employment standards that often get overlooked today: 40-hour work weeks, paid time off, safety, and sick leave. Union leaders began advocating for a holiday that appreciates working people and the difference they make in the world. The Central Labor Union adopted a proposal for the celebration and began organizing the first NYC parade.

Oregon became the first to declare it a legal holiday in 1887. Several followed suit by the end of the year, but it wouldn’t become a federal holiday in the U.S. and Canada until 1894.

Happy Labor Day to all past, present, and future labor leaders and workers!

[Gopher Gary]

Today's Google Doodle is Celebrating Luisa Moreno



In honor of US Hispanic Heritage Month, today’s Doodle celebrates Guatemalan American labor organizer, journalist, and activist Luisa Moreno. The artwork, depicting Moreno linking arms with people from the various communities she tirelessly advocated for, was illustrated by Guatemala City-based guest artist Juliet Menendez.

Moreno was born “Blanca Rosa Lopez Rodrigues” in Guatemala City on August 30, 1947. As a child, her family immigrated to Oakland, California. She moved back to Guatemala as a teenager, but her education was halted as women were not allowed to attend universities at the time. In response, Moreno organized a group to lobby for a woman's right to pursue higher education. Winning this civil rights campaign sparked her lifelong passion for activism.

Moreno pursued her interest in social issues as a journalist in Mexico City for a few years before moving to New York City in 1928. Shortly after her move, a group of Latino protesters were brutalized and killed by police after speaking out against a Warner Brothers film perpetuating anti-Mexican sentiment; She later stated this incident motivated her work to unify Spanish-speaking communities. When the Great Depression struck, she began working as a seamstress at a garment factory to support her family. She immediately saw the need for labor reform as workers were underpaid for long hours and endured dangerous working conditions.

In 1935, Moreno joined the American Federation of Labor as a professional organizer. Within that role, her work with the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA) took her across the country, helping workers such as cigar factory workers in Pennsylvania, sugar cane laborers and pecan shellers in the South, and beet farmers tuna packers in the West. She was eventually elected vice president of the UCAPAWA in 1941.

In addition to her labor rights work, Moreno advocated for racial and ethnic equality. In 1938 she founded the National Congress of Spanish-Speaking Peoples — the first national Latino civil rights assembly. The group advocated for the fair treatment of Latino employees and the desegregation of schools and neighborhoods. Notably, in 1942, she established a defense committee who successfully fought for the dismissal of charges against a group of Mexican American teenagers who were arrested without evidence.

Despite Moreno’s tireless efforts to improve the lives of thousands of US workers, her status as a labor leader made her a target for the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS). The INS began threatening her with deportation unless she testified against fellow union leaders. Refusing to do so, she was forced to leave the US and returned to Latin America. There, she continued her work by unionizing workers in Mexico, Cuba, and Guatemala.

Thank you for dedicating your life to improving conditions for every community you touched. Here’s to you, Luisa.

 

[Gopher Gary]

Today's Google Doodle is Google's 25th Birthday!



Today’s Doodle celebrates Google’s 25th year. And while here at Google we’re oriented towards the future,  birthdays can also be a time to reflect. Let’s take a walk down memory lane to learn how we were born 25 years ago...

By fate or luck, doctoral students Sergey Brin and Larry Page met in Stanford University’s computer science program in the late ‘90s. They quickly learned they shared a similar vision: make the World Wide Web a more accessible place. The pair worked tirelessly from their dorm rooms to develop a prototype for a better search engine. As they made meaningful progress on the project, they moved the operation to Google’s first office — a rented garage. On September 27, 1998, Google Inc. was officially born.

Much has changed since 1998 — including our logo as seen in today’s Doodle — but the mission has remained the same: to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Billions of people from all over the globe use Google to search, connect, work, play, and SO much more!

Thank you for evolving with us over the past 25 years. We can’t wait to see where the future takes us, together.

[renaeden]

I wouldn't have graduated from uni if it weren't for Google Scholar.

[Gopher Gary]

Today's Google Doodle is Mihály Csíkszentmihályi's 89th Birthday.



Today’s Doodle celebrates the 89th birthday of Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, a Hungarian-American psychologist who pioneered the scientific study of happiness and creativity as well as coining the term “flow”: the mental state of completely absorbing oneself in an activity. It’s a state of optimal performance and well-being that is characterized by focus, enjoyment, and fulfillment.

Csíkszentmihályi was born on this day in 1934 in Fiume (then part of Imperial Italy). His family struggled financially as a result of the economic downturn caused by WWII. Consequently, Csíkszentmihályi dropped out of school to help support his family. The profound suffering that Csíkszentmihályi witnessed during the war inspired him to dedicate his life to understanding the science of happiness. He turned to art, philosophy, and religion as he sought answers. In this exploration, he stumbled upon a lecture by Carl Jung, who spoke of the traumatized psyches of Europeans after World War II, and how their mental states caused them to project the UFO sightings into the sky. This interesting study led him to psychology.

He moved to the U.S. at 22 to study psychology at the University of Chicago. His interest in flow began during his graduate studies, when he observed painters so absorbed in their work they lost track of time and would disregard basic survival cues for food, water, and sleep. Several of his interview subjects described their experiences through the metaphor of a water current, thus the term “flow state” was born. He graduated with a PhD in Positive Developmental Psychology in 1965.

Csíkszentmihályi's book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience was published in 1990 and has since been translated into more than 20 languages. Business leaders, presidents, and sports coaches have praised its scientific insights into the nature of productivity and well-being.

Csíkszentmihályi went on to become a Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University. He founded and co-directed the Quality of Life Research Center. He was also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and earned several prestigious awards, including the Clifton Strengths Prize and the Széchenyi Prize.

Happy 89th birthday, Mihály Csíkszentmihályi!

[Gopher Gary]

Today's Google Doodle is Ferdinand Berthier’s 220th Birthday.



Today’s Doodle celebrates Deaf French educator and intellectual Ferdinand Berthier. He was one of the first advocates for Deaf culture in a time when those who had hearing differences were outcast by society.

Berthier was born in Saône-et-Loire, France on this day in 1803. As an eight-year old Deaf child, he started attending the National Institute for the Deaf in Paris. His parents hoped he would learn basic vocational and literacy skills to prepare him for a job as a tradesman. However, Berthier thrived in school and drew inspiration from his teachers (such as Laurent Clerc) to pursue a career in education. After further schooling, he returned to teach at the National Institute for the Deaf. By age 27, he became one of the school’s most senior professors.

In 1834, Berthier organized the first silent banquet for Deaf Frenchmen. In the following years, women, journalists, and government officials began to attend the annual event. Berthier also successfully petitioned the French government to create an organization that represented the Deaf community's interests. The Société Centrale des Sourds-muets was born. The first formalized group of its kind, it helped organize adult education classes and mutual aid efforts for people with Deafness.

After becoming a public figure through those initiatives, Berthier used his newfound fame to spotlight other inspiring Deaf people and teachings. He wrote books about the history of sign language and biographies about those who fought for Deaf rights, often referencing sign-language poets as authors in his work. Meanwhile, he pushed Société Centrale des Sourds-muets to become a global organization. In 1849, Berthier received the Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur — the first Deaf person to be awarded France’s highest honor.

Berthier remains one of the key activists for Deaf rights, and his efforts advanced education and perception of the deaf and hard-of-hearing community across Europe and America. Today, silent banquets are still held around the world.

Berthier's work also helped to raise awareness of the importance of sign language and Deaf culture, and to promote the use of sign language in Deaf education. As a result of the hard work and advocacy of Berthier, Deaf and hard of hearing people are now able to enjoy more of their human rights than ever before including access to medical care, and the right to drive vehicles.

Happy Birthday, Ferdinand Berthier!

[Gopher Gary]

Today's Google Doodle is Celebrating the Appalachian Trail.



https://www.google.com/doodles/celebrating-the-appalachian-trail

Today’s slideshow Doodle celebrates the Appalachian Trail — click the Doodle to explore the 2,190-mile footpath that spans across 14 U.S. states! The Appalachian trail is the longest hiking-only footpath in the world, and has served sightseeing hikers for nearly 100 years. It traverses through dense forests, across rushing rivers, and over mountain summits along the east coast. On this day in 1968 The National Trails System Act established the Appalachian Trail as one of the country’s first National Scenic Trails.

Benton MacKaye, a forester, conservationist, and lifelong outdoorsman, first proposed the idea in 1921. His original plan, titled An Appalachian Trail: A Project in Regional Planning, outlined a stretch of several self-sustaining agricultural camps along the way. Many like-minded people started joining his cause, and the community eventually became known as the Appalachian Trail Conference.

In 1937, thanks to combined efforts of many trailblazers, the Appalachian Trail became fully connected from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine. Ten years later, a hiker named Earl Shaffer reported the first thru-hike from end-to-end and ignited a wave of interest. Over fourteen thousand people have completed the trek since.

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Trails System Act in 1968, which declared the Appalachian Trail as one of the first national scenic trails and recognized it as federal land. Finally, in 2014, the last major stretch of land was acquired, turning initial dreams for the trail into reality.

Nowadays, in a collaborative effort to conserve its natural glory, the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Appalachian Trail Conservancy, and many volunteers maintain and manage the historic footpath. Thousands of pathfinders visit the route each year with the intention of completing the four- to six-month long thru-hike.

Happy trails!

[Gopher Gary]

Today's Google Doodle is Halloween 2023



https://www.google.com/doodles/halloween-2023

Boo! Did we scare you?

Halloween has come, so don’t be looking glum. Click through today’s slideshow Doodle to trick-or-treat with a vampire, a witch, and ghost. And venture out tonight to collect the candy that you love the most!

It’s the scariest day in Fall — Happy Halloween to all 🎃

[Gopher Gary]

Today's Google Doodle is Day of the Dead 2023



Today’s hand-crafted paper automata Doodle celebrates Day of the Dead, or Día de los Muertos, in Mexico. This holiday, celebrated from November 1st through November 2nd and is a time for families to honor loved ones who have passed. On this day each year, it’s said that the border between the spirit world and living world dissolves, allowing the souls of the dead to reunite with their families.

Día de los Muertos has indigenous roots dating back more than 3,000 years ago to pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations like the Aztec, Mayan, and Nahua. It was believed that after death, a person had to complete nine challenges to reach the final resting place of Chicunamictlán. Families would place altares (offerings) of food, water, tools, and other symbolic items to aid their loved ones’ journeys in the afterlife.

To celebrate, many Mexicans paint their faces with calaveras (skulls). Women wear colorful dresses or blouses and handmade flower crowns, while men dress in suits and hats. Families bring ofrendas such as pictures and personal items of the departed to altars adorned with marigolds. These bright orange flowers line the pathway back to the living and attract souls with their scent and vibrance. Feasts of tamales, pan de muerto, calaveras de azúcar, and other Mexican delicacies are also served throughout the country.

Día de los Muertos is a colorful and lively occasion for remembering and celebrating those who have passed on from this world. It’s an intimate dedication to the deceased, and an invaluable time for families to reunite with their loved ones.