St. Patrick's Day Google Doodle Features Animated Dancers

Google is celebrating St. Patrick's Day with an animated homepage doodle that features six Irish dancers.
The dancers are outfitted in traditional Irish step dance costumes, each of which feature one letter from the Google logo. They are dancing in unison, including a high-flying jump.

Last year's St. Patrick's Day doodle channeled the Book of Kells, a 9th-century gospel manuscript. The Book of Kells, currently housed in the Old Library at Dublin's Trinity College, is believed to have been created around the year 800 in the monastery at Kells, County Meath after a Viking raid forced the Columban monks to abandon a monastery on the island of Iona, just off the west coast of Scotland.

Today's holiday, meanwhile, celebrates St. Patrick, who lived during the fifth century and is the patron saint and national apostle of Ireland. As noted by History.com, he is known for bringing Christianity to the people of Ireland, and his legend has taken on mythic proportions.

"Perhaps the most well known legend is that he explained the Holy Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) using the three leaves of a native Irish clover, the shamrock," History.com said.

Interestingly, however, the first St. Patrick's Day parade was actually held in the U.S. in 1762 in New York City, a tradition that continues today. This year's parade was held on Saturday, and featured Grand Marshal John E. Smith, the great-grandson of Al Smith, former New York governor

Google Animated Doodle Celebrates Copernicus' Birthday

Google may be at the center of the search universe, but today's Google Doodle celebrates a man who taught the world, "You're not at the center of the universe."

Born Feb. 19, 1473, Nicolaus Copernicus was a mathematician and astronomer, best known for his heliocentric model which placed the Sun, and not the earth, at the center of our cosmos.
Copernicus' book "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) is considered to be one of the most important works in the history of science, sparking the Copernican revolution and changing our view of the universe.

Today's Google Doodle is an animated view of the Copernican model of the universe, with the Sun at its center and other planets orbiting around it.

How do you like today's Doodle? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Image courtesy of Google