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Google pays homage today to Celia Cruz, a Cuban-American entertainer who reigned as the “Salsa Queen” to adoring fans worldwide. A singer and dancer, Cruz made many gold albums and won several Grammy Awards during her time as an entertainer. She died at the age of 77 in 2003.
Cruz grew up in Cuba but moved to the United States, where she resided in New Jersey for the majority of her life. Cruz was reportedly interested in singing at an early age, but her father wanted her to stay in school to become a teacher.
However, Cruz had different plans. In her twenties, she joined a Cuban orchestra as their lead singer. “Café con Leche” was the name of the group that made Cruz famous. Under this name, she and her team of musicians toured for many years.
Cruz performed her entire life and said of retirement: “It is absolute death, and I’m not talking about artists, because some performers change the focus of their career … I believe inactivity is a cancer in the soul… I’ve always thought that I’ll retire when God takes away my abilities… like Miguelito Valdez, I want to bid farewell to life while on stage.”
Today on her birthday, the official site for Celia Cruz is opening up the stage to her fans, asking them to post a photo, video or message on social media using the hashtag #dearcelia.
Original Article Post by
Jessica Lee @
Search Engine Watch
Google officially turns 15 today. For the first time, the search giant is wishing itself a happy birthday with a playable Google Doodle in which you play as the lowercase "g" in Google's name and whack a piñata to score as much candy as possible.
To kick off the game, click on the play button located on the 15th birthday cake. A star-shaped Google-colored piñata will appear, and the lower-case "g" now appears blind-folded and wielding a stick, as the other letters bounce and watch.
Using the space bar or your mouse, you have 10 chances to whack the piñata as hard as you can and knock out virtual pieces of candy. Every time you hit the piñata, with the exception of the very first time, pieces of candy in Google-colored wrappers will fall into a pile in the back yard scene.
After you've taken all your swings, Google will give you your score and let you share your score on Google+, go to search, or play again.
While Google has given us better playable Doodles in the past, such as the Les Paul Doodle and Pac-Man, it's still a pretty addictive game that makes you want to keep trying to beat your score. Hey, at least it's Friday!
In addition to today's playable Google Doodle, Google also revealed a 15th birthday Easter egg, which lets you see what Google used to look like in 1998.
But bigger and far more important than that, Google announced one of the biggest overhauls to its search engine in years – and did so from the garage where Google began 15 years ago. The algorithmic update, dubbed Hummingbird, aims to deliver better results to users for more complex search queries and has actually been running for about a month now.
As we've mentioned in previous years, the day Google celebrates its birthday has moved through the years. Since 2005, Google has celebrated its birthday on September 27th, even though Google filed for incorporation on September 4, 1998, was established three days later on September 7, and the Google.com domain was registered September 15.
The first Doodle dedicated to Google's own birthday appeared on Sept. 27, 2002, for their fourth birthday.
Here's a look back at how Google has celebrated its birthday through the years:
Sept. 27, 2012
Sept. 27, 2011
Sept. 27, 2010
Sept. 27, 2009
Sept. 27, 2008
Sept. 27, 2007
Sept. 27, 2006
Sept. 27, 2005
Sept. 7, 2004
Sept. 7, 2003
Sept. 27, 2002
Happy 15th birthday, Google!
Original Article Post by
Danny Goodwin @
Search Engine Watch
A Google Doodle today celebrates one of the pioneering United States social workers, Jane Addams. She was the first American woman to win the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize, doing so in 1931. Addams was born on this date 153 years ago.
The Doodle depicts a pastel drawing of Hull House in Chicago, showing children being educated, being cared for by a physician, and celebrating the arts. The Doodle is only featured on Google's U.S. homepage. Clicking on the special logo takes visitors to a search results page for Jane Addams.
Addams was most known for campaigning for women's rights, social reform, and services for women, children, and immigrants. Due to her high profile, J. Edgar Hoover, founding director of the FBI, once considered her the "most dangerous woman in America."
Addams cofounded the Hull House in Chicago with Ellen Gates Starr in 1889. The house, which was named after the home's original owner, was originally opened to help European immigrants, but by 1911 Hull House expanded to 13 buildings and held social, educational, and artistic programs. It eventually expanded to include a day care center, public baths, nutritious food, and additional services.
While Gates and Starr were the first two residents of Hull house, eventually 25 women were in residence at Hull House, and 2,000 people visited each week for the many services offered. The night school for adults eventually became what we now know as continuing education classes, which are taught in the evenings at many universities and colleges.
Addams was head resident of Hull House until her death. Hull House continued to operate until 2012.
It was announced on January 19, 2012 that Hull House would be closing in the spring of that year and filing for bankruptcy. However, Hull House closed later that month. It was later reopened as a museum.
All of the additional buildings surrounding Hull House, with the exception of the dining hall, were destroyed by the University of Illinois.
Addams, who suffered from a spinal deformity for most of her life, was unable to attend the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo due to ill health. On the same day the award was presented, Addams was actually being admitted to a hospital. She died from cancer on May 21, 1935, with her funeral being held in the courtyard of Hull House.
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Today's Google Doodle celebrates Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, which he gave on August 28, 1963 during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedoms at the Lincoln Memorial. The speech is considered a defining moment in the American Civil Rights Movement, and was in response to the civil rights legislation President Kennedy had proposed in June of that year.
The speech had originally been planned as an homage to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, however due to concerns about keeping the demonstration calm, King instead gave the speech that became commonly known as "I Have a Dream".
The most famous line from the speech, and the one that is most often quoted, expands to "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!"
It isn't very well-known that the speech was actually a combination of several drafts written, and the speech was originally titled "Normalcy, Never Again". The end of the speech actually wasn't from his prepared speech at all, but was more of a sermon prompted by someone in the crowd, resulting in a much stronger emphasis on the idea of dreams than originally intended.
While he was speaking, African-American gospel singer Mahalia Jackson called to King from the crowd, saying "Tell them about the dream, Martin!" This resulted in King stopping the speech he had prepared, and ended up preaching, focusing on dreams.
The speech was highly publicized in the press after the event, with most of the comments regarding the eloquence of King's speech, and the way he touched the crowd with his words. King was named to the Man of the Year by Time magazine for both 1963 in 1964, following the speech. He also became the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, when he won it in 1964.
Interestingly, despite the speech being so well-known in American history, the full text of the speech wasn't published until 15 years after King's death, when the Washington Post published it in August 1983. It has since been added to the United States national recording Registry, and the National Park Service is also commemorated him with a marble pedestal at the location gave a speech at the Lincoln Memorial.
After King gave a speech, he gave his typewritten speech to George Raveling, a basketball player from Villanova who happen to be on the podium with King as the speech ended, as he was a security guard for the event. However in earlier version of the "Normalcy, Never Again" speech is part of the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection at the Robert W. Woodruff Library in Atlanta.
This isn't the first time the Google has paid tribute to Dr. King. Nearly every year Google has marked Martin Luther King Jr. Day with special logos, as it did again in January of this year with this Doodle:
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Today, Google celebrates famous French composer Achille-Claude Debussy, who was born on this date 151 years ago, with an animated, musical Doodle.
The Google Doodle features a historic moonlit French city scene reminiscent of the 1800s that unfolds as one of his most famous musical works, "Claire de Lune," plays in the background.
Doodler Leon Hong provided some insight on the creation of the Doodle:
We sought out to create an animated doodle to commemorate Debussy as one of the most influential composers of all time. At the outstart, the task of creating and coding visual imagery that does justice to the spirit of his music seemed incredibly daunting. But, as it turned out, all I needed to do was to resurrect my trusty CD player and hit play, and the inspiration would start flooding in. I felt flickering lights, a quiet city and pouring rain set against the magical melody of Clair de Lune.
"Claire de Lune" was one of four movements in Debussy’s "Suite bergamasque," a noted piano composition that began in 1890 but did not publish until 1905. He was 28 at the time.
Debussy began piano lessons as a child and entered into the arts college Conservatoire de Paris at the young age of 10.
Considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century, Debussy grew to become one of the most prominent figures in impressionist music, although it's been said himself didn't like that label for his music.
While Debussy's personal life was marked with turmoil and scandal, he finally settled with Emma Bardac, a woman with whom he had his one and only child, daughter Claude-Emma.
Debussy died at the age of 55 in Paris of colon cancer after battling it for nearly a decade. After a temporary fix during one of the first colostomy operations performed, he passed away amidst a German attack on France in World War I.
His funeral procession was made through deserted streets while the Germans continued to bombard the city, which meant there were no graveside ceremony fitting for such a well-known figure in Paris.
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A Google Doodle today celebrates Erwin Schrödinger, a Nobel Prize winning Austrian quantum physicist, who was born on this date 126 years ago. He is most notably famous for a thought experiment called Schrödinger's cat, depicted in the logo with an alive and dead cat.
The experiment, which is often referred to as a paradox, demonstrates how there was conflict in applying the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics to every day objects.
Schrödinger explained the experiment:
A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter, there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer that shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid.
If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.
Schrödinger's cat has been referenced numerous times in pop culture. Below, you can enjoy Sheldon from "The Big Bang Theory" explaining the Schrödinger's cat experiment as a metaphor for Leonard and Penny's relationship:
American astronomer Maria Mitchell is celebrated in today's Google Doodle. Born 195 years ago today, she discovered a new comet in 1847, which later became known as Miss Mitchell's Comet.
The Doodle primarily depicts Mitchell the night she discovered the new comet bearing her name. Google's special logo forgoes the usual thick lettering for a thinner version of the Google font, in slightly faded colors.
Mitchell is shown on a rooftop, which partially eclipses the G and the two Google Os. She's peering into a telescope, representing the L in Google.
An observatory dome can be seen to the right of the house, slightly covering the Google E. A starry night with trails of comets appears throughout the background.
Mitchell periodically went up on her roof with the family's 2-inch telescope to "sweep the heavens," according to her journal entries. On October 1, 1847, she discovered a streak in her telescope. She continued to monitor its movement and two days later, its discovery was recorded to in a letter to Cambridge University.
While others around the world had observed the comet as well, her journal entries and tracking showed she was the first to notice it. Her journaling would later lead to determining the orbit of the comet.
At the time, only a handful of comets were known to mankind. But King Frederick VI of Denmark offered a prize every time a new comet was discovered. Her discovery earned her a gold medal from the king of Denmark and immediate international attention.
Mitchell marveled at the colors of the night sky. In a journal entry dated February 1855, she noted: "I amused myself with noticing the varieties of color. I wonder that I have so long been insensible to this charm in the skies, the tints of the different stars are so delicate in their variety.... What a pity that some of our manufacturers shouldn't be able to steal the secret of dyestuffs from the stars."
In 1865, Mitchell was appointed the Vassar College faculty, making her the first female astronomy professor in the United States and the first person ever appointed to their faculty. Additionally, she was appointed director of the Vassar College Observatory.
Throughout her career, she observed numerous sunspots, comets, nebulae, stars, and the moons for both Saturn and Jupiter. Believing observation was most important aspect of learning, she took her students across the U.S. to Colorado in 1878 to observe a total solar eclipse.
After realizing her pay was less than that of her male counterparts, she successfully demanded an increase in her salary. She co-founded the American Association for the Advancement of Women and was an avid protestor for the women's suffrage movement and anti-slavery movement. In 1994, she was posthumously inducted to the National Women's Hall of Fame.
In 1908, The Maria Mitchell Observatory was founded and named in her honor in her hometown of Nantucket. The Mitchell Crater on the moon is also named in her honor. Her telescope is on display at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History.
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On what would have been her 93rd birthday, today's Google Doodle honors Rosalind Franklin. Franklin took an X-ray diffraction image of the DNA molecule in 1952. The image was called Photo 51 and was the critical piece to identifying the structure and composition of DNA.
"We're wishing a happy birthday to British biophysicist and X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin, whose work was critical to our understanding of DNA and RNA and led to the discovery of the DNA double helix," Google announced via Google+.
Today's logo depicts Franklin in the second "O," staring through her X-ray tubes, which represent the "G" at a double helix, representing the "l." The Google "e" is an image of what DNA looked like in her now-famous Photo 51 image.
Franklin was the daughter of an affluent British family who attended Newnham College and King's College. Her early areas of research were with coal, detailing its permeability.
It was her work that led to the use of coal as a fuel, as well as a filter for gas masks. Her work with coal was the basis for her thesis, earning her a PhD from Cambridge University.
As a research associate at King's College London, Franklin was assigned to work with then-student Raymond Gosling. Her knowledge of chemistry and X-ray diffraction led to her photograph.
Her research and papers contributed to the understanding of the composition of both the A-DNA and B-DNA molecules as helices.
In later years, three other researches were passed information on Franklin's research. Francis Crick, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins later mapped the double helix. Their work earned them a Nobel Prize in 1962, four years after Franklin died of ovarian cancer.
Although best known for her work on mapping DNA, Franklin also used X-ray crystallography to study the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) and researched RNA, specifically in regards to RNA viruses. While immensely sick and undergoing cancer treatment, Franklin and her research team produced 13 papers in the last two years leading up to her death in 1958.
Posthumously, Franklin has been recognized in a number of ways. King's College in London named a dormitory Rosalind Franklin Hall and an academic building named the Franklin-Wilkins building. The American National Cancer Institute established the Rosalind E. Franklin Award for Women in science. In 2004, The Chicago Medical School renamed its Finch University to the Rosalink Franklin University of Medicine and Science.
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It's Independence Day in the U.S., which observes the signing of the Declaration of Independence. America has celebrated every July 4th for 237 years. Today's Google Doodle once again marks the 4th of July, as Google has done every year since 2000, making it the second longest running holiday honored by Google (behind only Thanksgiving).
Today's Google Doodle is interactive. Featuring a family of animated dogs, clicking through the Doodle will take you through a series of 13 fun road trip style photos featuring the animated family in various U.S. locations – such as at Mount Rushmore, a baseball stadium, stopping for ice cream, and at the Statue of Liberty.
The interactive Doodle concludes with an snapshot of the family enjoying fireworks in the night sky.
This is followed by Google wishing everyone "Happy July 4th, 2013" via a scrawled note beneath the American flag.
Google then sends users to a search for [When is Independence Day?], which is probably one of the most pointless pages to send users to. Hint: it's today!
The Doodle is somewhat reminiscent, though much more elaborate, than the 2011 Fourth of July Google Doodle, which featured assorted places represented by landmarks from sea to shining sea – from San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge to the Statue of Liberty in New York.
Speaking of past Google Doodles, here's a look back at all of Google's July 4th holiday celebrations dating back to 2000. You'll notice some similar American icons appear, such as the eagle, Liberty Bell, and Statue of Liberty.
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
The first year - 2000 - Google actually ran a series over the course of a few days with characatures of the Founding Fathers running around the doodles.
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