Google birthday surprise spinner as the giant search engine celebrates its 19th birthday
Today's Google Doodle is sure to be a special one. This is because today's Google Doodle commemorates Google's 19th year of existence on earth. In other words, today is Google's 19th Birthday. To mark its 19th Birthday, Google has integrated a spinning wheel, which is a simple and fun way to explore the 19 surprises that Google has launched over the past 19 years. This includes a version of the popular classic game, Snake.
In 1997, Google's co-founder Larry Page arrived at Stanford University in order to pursue a PhD in computer science. In an act of random coincidence, Google's other co-founder, Sergey Brin, was assigned to show Larry Page around the campus. This was the chance encounter that started the entire Google phenomena.
Both the geniuses, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, came together and started to develop a common goal: to organise the entire world's information and make this organisation into something that is useful and accessible to everybody in the world. This mantra went on to become Google's mission statement.
The name 'Google', it is interesting to know, is named after the number "Googol", which is basically the number 1 followed by a hundred zeroes! This number holds ever-increasing significance for Google as the search engine increasingly moves closer and closer to its namesake, since Google now serves more than 4.5 billion users in 160 countries speaking 123 languages worldwide.
There is an interesting history of the Google Doodle itself. It is said that in 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin drew a stick figure behind the second 'O' of Google. This meant to signify that they were not in office and were in the Burning Man festival instead. They decided that this could be an interesting way to mark cultural moments and Google users found this to be interesting as well. Thus, the Google Doodle was born.
On Google's 19th Birthday, do visit Google's home page and feel free to click on and explore all of Google's 19 different surprises through the spinning wheel.