This article was published on February 21, 2011

A look back: 11 years of Google Doodles


A look back: 11 years of Google Doodles

Tomorrow is Presidents Day here in the United States. It’s a national holiday, and with all important holidays we have come to expect the Google Doodle to show homage of such occasions. Sadly if the last decade is anything to go by, there will be no doodle to celebrate the first president of America, George Washington.

Rather than go into the debate of Google’s political tendencies, lets look at the Google Logos of the past.

The first Google Doodle came two years after its launch in 2000. That was to commemorate the joyous and important occasion of St Patrick’s Day in the US.

The images weren’t as creative as they are now, think Clipart from the early days of Microsoft Word. Now some of the doodles are considered works of art.

Clearly love has always been important to Google as it played a heavy role in Google’s 2nd ever doodle and has been remembered every year since then (other then Olympic years). Here is its Valentines doodle from 2000 – 2011

2000

2001

2003

2004

2005

2007

2008

2009

2011

Its doodle have become more elaborate and numerous in the last few years. The biggest changes happening last year and this year with versions in HD and animation. Here is a doodle that is also available in HD:

Jules Verne’s 183rd Birthday, 2011

An occasion Google has marked religiously is the Olympics. It displays several dedicated doodles over the sporting period. Here are the Olympics doodle corresponding with the opening ceremonies:

Olympics 2010

Olympics 2006

Olympics 2002

It will be a ‘wait and see’ to see if Google does anything tomorrow for Presidents Day. But here is a president they do like and this was its doodle dedicated to John F Kennedy on the 50th Anniversary of his inauguration:

50th Anniversary of JFK’s Inaugural Speech 2011

You can see all of Google’s Doodles from the past eleven years here.

On a side note, who else is sick of reading the world ‘doodle’?

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