Google constantly ups the ante for doodles on their page. The Google Doodles began with static artwork replacing the iconic letters G-o-o-g-l-e, but they’ve lifted it to its own art form. For quite a while now, we’ve expected great things from the doodles. The pressure is on, and Google continues to deliver. In between the static but beautiful doodles are games, animations, and stories. Not all of their doodles are viewable from the United States, however, but that’s where the Google Doodle gallery page comes in handy. It shows the doodle, video of its animation, or game (though not necessarily playable), whichever is applicable. It shows what country the doodle was displayed in, along with other doodles which have been shared on that day in history.
Here are a few of my favorite Google Doodles from 2015.
January 6th – Holidays 2015 (Day 1 – Eastern Europe)–Shown in Eastern Europe, this doodle shows many different modes of transport to get from place to place for the holidays.
Feburary 1 – Langston Hughes’ 113th Birthday–Dream of a world that’s a better world than the one in which we live. Follow along with his words and be inspired.
February 7 – Laura Ingalls Wilder’s 148th Birthday–Done by the same brothers who did the needlefelting for the Star Wars Epic Yarns series LINK, this static image had a lot going on in the background. Literally and figuratively.
February 13 – Ivan Andreyevich Krylov’s 246th Birthday–This one is just beautiful. I love the watercolor art, and authors are always to be celebrated.
March 23 – Emmy Noether’s 133rd Birthday–Why this one? I love the art style, and I’m a sucker for awesome female scientists.
April 14 – 155th Anniversary of the Pony Express–It was a game! And, though the Pony Express was a short-lived phenomenon, it was pretty important at the time. A bit of history that’s easy to become an expert on.
April 21 – 81st Anniversary of the Loch Ness Monster’s most famous photograph–This one made me giggle.
April 23 – St. George’s Day 2015–My favorite part is how they made fire to stand for the letters O.
May 1 – 175th anniversary of the Penny Black stamp–British postal history! There is more regular history tied into postal history than you might think.
May 4 – Bartolomeo Cristofori’s 360th Birthday–Inventor of the pianoforte, this doodle is still interactive. Give it a try!
May 5 – Nellie Bly’s 151st Birthday–Nellie Bly stuck her nose up at people who thought women’s place was in the home. She showed them by undertaking adventures all over the world. Her story is one of those included in the book Around the World by Matt Phelan.
May 10 – Mother’s Day–This doodle was shown for various observances of Mother’s Day during the year, but this was when it showed in my country.
May 15 – 80th Anniversary of the Opening of the Moscow Metro–Again, loved the art! And it’s a reminder of how people all over the world go to and fro.
May 26 – Sally Ride’s 64th Birthday–Because Sally Ride.
June 21 – Father’s Day 2015–This doodle was the Father’s Day counterpart to the Mother’s Day doodle earlier, also shown around the world for this holiday.
July 7 – Eiji Tsuburaya’s 114th Birthday–Make your own Japanese monster movie!
July 14 – New Horizons Pluto flyby–This was a huge event this year! For science!
August 5 – 101st Anniversary of the First Electric Traffic Signal System–Imagine a time in history when vehicle traffic was so light that we didn’t need stoplights.
August 23 – Mundaneum co-founder Paul Otlet’s 147th Birthday–There is quite a history to information organization. Forget the internet–this man was one of the ones who worked early to index knowledge.
September 29 – Evidence of water found on Mars–Between this and the Pluto flyby earlier in the year (and many other achievements I don’t know about), this was a great year for astronomy.
October 3 – German Reunification Day 2015–I know I’m not the only person in the U.S. who remembers German reunification. The Berlin Wall coming down, two separate governments becoming one. Big news.
November 2 – George Boole’s 200th Birthday–I’m not sure why the U.S. was left out of displaying this doodle, but Boolean algebra was one of the most fun bits of logic that I learned in high school.
November 9 – Hedy Lamarr’s 101st birthday–This one displays not only Lamarr’s acting credits, but also her smarts and inventions.
November 20 – Nadine Gordimer’s 92nd Birthday–Google Doodles are great ways to learn about important figures from other countries. I had not known about Nadine Gordimer, but the beautiful, artistic doodle done in her name pushes me to learn more.
December 17 – Celebrating Ludwig van Beethoven’s 245th Year–This recent doodle is a game, still playable, which is a great introduction to a few of Beethoven’s famous pieces. Ahh… the classics.
December 23, 24, and 25 – Holidays 2015, Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3–This collection of doodles is printable to allow for offline play. See what you can do with these adorable papercrafts.
Check out Google’s gallery of their past doodles yourself. The artwork is varied and beautiful, and you’ll learn quite a lot about celebrations and marked days in other countries. Which ones are your favorites?
