Václav Čtvrtek's 100th Birthday

Source: http://www.google.cz/logos/2011/ctvrtek11-hp.jpg

Jules Verne's birthday

Jules Gabriel Verne (French pronunciation: [ʒyl vɛʁn]; February 8, 1828 – March 24, 1905) was a French Breton author who pioneered the science-fiction genre. He is best known for novels such as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before air travel and practical submarines were invented, and before practical means of space travel had been devised. He is the third most translated individual author in the world, according to Index Translationum. Some of his books have been made into films. Verne, along with Hugo Gernsback and H. G. Wells, is often popularly referred to as the "Father of Science Fiction". [Read more on Wikipedia]

Mehmet Akif Ersoy's birthday

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Mehmet Âkif Ersoy (1873, Istanbul - 27 December 1936, Istanbul) was a Turkish poet, author, academic, member of parliament, and the poet of the Turkish National Anthem. He was of Albanian descent. Mehmet Âkif Ersoy Home Pages Widely regarded as one of the premiere literary minds of his time, Ersoy was further noted for his command of the Turkish language, as well as his patriotism and piousness and his support for the Turkish War of Independence. [Read more on Wikipedia]

Nachum Gutman Birthday

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Nachum Gutman (alternate romanization: Nahum Gutman; Hebrew: נחום גוטמן‎: born 5 October 1898, died 28 November 1980) was a Russian-born Israeli painter, sculptor and author. [Read more on Wikipedia]

Nachum Gutman in Vienna, 1920

Happy 4th of July and Happy Birthday Rube Goldberg!

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Reuben Lucius Goldberg (July 4, 1883 – December 7, 1970) was a Jewish American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor. Goldberg is best known for a series of popular cartoons he created depicting complex devices that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways – now known as Rube Goldberg machines. Goldberg received many honors in his lifetime including a Pulitzer Prize for his political cartooning in 1948 and the Banshees' Silver Lady Award 1959.

Goldberg was a founding member and the first president of the National Cartoonists Society, and is the name sake of the Reuben Award which the organization awards to the Cartoonist of the Year. He is the inspiration for various international competitions, known as Rube Goldberg contests, which challenge participants to make a complex machine to perform a simple task. [Read more on Wikipedia]

Jacques Cousteau's 100th Birthday

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Jacques-Yves Cousteau (French pronunciation: [ʒak iv kusto]; commonly known in English as Jacques Cousteau; 11 June 1910 – 25 June 1997) was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the aqua-lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie française. He was also known as "le Commandant Cousteau" or "Captain Cousteau". [Read more on Wikipedia]

Jacques-Yves Cousteau in 1976

150th Birthday of J.M. Barrie

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Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM (9 May 1860 – 19 June 1937) was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright. There he met the Llewelyn Davies boys who inspired him in writing about a baby boy who has magical adventures in Kensington Gardens (included in The Little White Bird), then to write Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, a "fairy play" about this ageless boy and an ordinary girl named Wendy who have adventures in the fantasy setting of Neverland. This play quickly overshadowed his previous work and although he continued to write successfully, it became his best-known work, credited with popularising the name Wendy, which was very uncommon previously. Barrie unofficially adopted the Davies boys following the deaths of their parents. Before his death, he gave the rights to the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Hospital, which continues to benefit from them. [Read more on Wikipedia]

James Matthew Barrie in 1890

Karen Blixen's Birthday

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Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke (17 April 1885 – 7 September 1962), née Karen Christenze Dinesen, was a Danish author also known by her pen name Isak Dinesen. She also wrote under the pen names Osceola and Pierre Andrézel. Blixen wrote works in both Danish and in English.

Blixen is best known for Out of Africa, her account of living in Kenya, and one of her stories, Babette's Feast, both of which have been adapted into highly acclaimed, Academy Award-winning motion pictures. Prior to the release of the first film, she was noted for her Seven Gothic Tales, for which she is also known in Denmark.

Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, described as "a mistake" that Blixen was not awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature during the 1930s. In Denmark, her place among 20th century Danes is second in prominence only to physicist Niels Bohr. [Read more on Wikipedia]

Karen Blixen in her later years

Hans Christian Andersen's 205th Birthday

Hans Christian Andersen's Thumbelina has taken over Google's logo!

Google's multi-colored logo has been replaced by a series of Google Doodles that present scenes from Hans Christian Andersen's children's story Thumbelina.

Today marks the writer's 205th birthday. His other famous stories include The Snow Queen, The Little Mermaid, The Emperor's New Clothes, and The Princess and the Pea.

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Hans Christian Andersen (Danish pronunciation: [ˈhanˀs ˈkʰʁæʂd̥jan ˈɑnɐsn̩], referred to using the initials H. C. Andersen in Denmark; April 2, 1805 – August 4, 1875) was a Danish author and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", "The Snow Queen", "The Little Mermaid", "Thumbelina", "The Little Match Girl", and "The Ugly Duckling".

During his lifetime he was acclaimed for having delighted children worldwide, and was feted by royalty. His poetry and stories have been translated into more than 150 languages. They have inspired motion pictures, plays, ballets, and animated films. [Read more on Wikipedia]

Rampo Edogawa's Birthday

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Hirai Tarō (平井 太郎, October 21, 1894 - July 28, 1965), better known by the pseudonym Edogawa Rampo (江戸川 乱歩, sometimes romanized as "Edogawa Ranpo"), was a Japanese author and critic who played a major role in the development of Japanese mystery fiction. Many of his novels involve the detective hero Kogorō Akechi, who in later books was the leader of a group of boy detectives known as the "Adolescent Detective Gang" (少年探偵団 Shōnen tantei dan).

H.G. Wells' Birthday

Indeed, Google's doodles were related to H. G. Wells' birthday. "Inspiration for innovation in technology and design can come from lots of places; we wanted to celebrate H.G. Wells as an author who encouraged fantastical thinking about what is possible, on this planet and beyond. And maybe have some fun while we were doing it," explains Google. Here's the third and final doodle:

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Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary. Together with Jules Verne, Wells has been referred to as "The Father of Science Fiction".

Wells was an outspoken socialist and sympathetic to pacifist views, although he supported the First World War once it was under way, and his later works became increasingly political and didactic. His middle-period novels (1900–1920) were less science-fictional; they covered lower-middle class life (The History of Mr Polly) and the "New Woman" and the Suffragettes (Ann Veronica). [Read more on Wikipedia]

Wells pictured some time before 1916

Alexander Pushkin's Birthday

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Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (Russian: Алекса́ндр Серге́евич Пу́шкин, pronounced [ɐlʲɪˈksandr sʲɪˈrɡʲejevʲɪtɕ ˈpuʃkʲɪn] ( listen)) (June 6 [O.S. May 26] 1799–February 10 [O.S. January 29] 1837) was a Russian author of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin pioneered the use of vernacular speech in his poems and plays, creating a style of storytelling—mixing drama, romance, and satire—associated with Russian literature ever since and greatly influencing later Russian writers. He also wrote historical fiction. His The Captain's Daughter provides insight into Russia during the reign of Catherine the Great. [Read more on Wikipedia]

Aleksandr Pushkin by Vasily Tropinin