For Thanksgiving this year, Google is celebrating the beloved holiday with doodles reminiscent of many of our childhood. If you go to Google's homepage today from the United States, you'll see that the Google logo has been replaced by "hand turkeys," a past childhood time that's done by children all across the country. The simple activity, done by tracing the outline of your hand with a crayon, gas been practiced by many generations of Americans. According to Google:
"Today's Doodle celebrates Thanksgiving with a tribute to "hand turkeys," an easy-to-make holiday bonding activity. A time for gathering with loved ones and giving thanks for the blessings in your life, Americans of all walks of life observe this holiday on the last Thursday in November"
In addition to the hand turkeys diving in that's seen on the front page, there are other doodles that were sketched. One shows a hand turkey holding a football while another holds an ear of corn. Another one shows the hand turkey in a thumbs-up position while the last one shows the hand turkeys high-fiving each other.
A Brief History Of Doodles
Google usually changes the logo on their main landing page to celebrate a local or international event, to commemorate a prominent person, or to just show something cool they've been working on. The first Google Doodle was set up by founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The pair created the doodle to notify their users in case their website would crash as they attended Burning Man at that time. Ever since 2000, a team of employees known as "Doodlers" has been in charge of organizing and publishing the fun twists on the Google website.
The first doodles were simply images with hover-over text describing the doodle. However, by the 2010s, Google Doodles have become more frequent and much more elaborate. The company started using more dynamic media such as sound, animation, and even sometimes games.
Google also has a "Doodle 4 Google" competition where school students can send in their doodles to Google. The drawings are then voted on, and the winner receives a trip to the Googleplex, as well as getting their doodle hosted on the Google main webpage.
Memorable Doodles
Google has launched over 4000 different Doodles, some of which achieved their own internet fame. In May 2010, Google unveiled its first interactive logo to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man. It allowed visitors to play a version of Pac-man on the Google front page. Later on, Google released a permanent link that allowed the logo to be played permanently, with a report stating that the browser game attracted up to 1 billion players in three days.
In October 2010, Google released its first video doodle to commemorate the 70th birthday of John Lennon. His bandmate, legendary Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, also had a similar tribute with an animation clip of "Don't Stop Me Now" playing on the front pages on September 5, 2011.
In May 2014, Google made a digital Rubik's cube that was solvable. This was done as part of the 40thanniversary of the puzzle cube. Just recently, on March 21, Google released the first Doodle that uses AI to make music. The user inputs a user-created melody, which the Doodle then harmonizes to Bach's signature style.
