Tom Sawyer Gets Google to Paint the Fence for Mark Twains Birthday


Google is celebrating Mark Twains 176th birthday with one of the largest Google Doodles weve seen so far, referencing a famous incident from Twains The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, where Tom cleverly gets other boys to paint a fence instead of him.

Mark Twain, whose real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was born in Florida, Missouri on November 30, 1835. He is best known for the first Tom Sawyer book and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

He was also a successful journalist, a witty humorist, and quite an unsuccessful entrepreneur, having failed at various business ventures, at one time even forced to declare bankruptcy. Twain was very interested in inventions and modern technology. A venture capitalist of sorts, he invested a great d! eal of m oney in the Paige typesetting machine, which was made obsolete by the Linotype, causing Twain to lose most of his investment.

Besides his literary and other achievements, Mark Twain is also known for the fact that he was born during a visit by Halleys Comet. He predicted that he would die when the comet returns, and he indeed died one day after the comets closest approach to Earth in 1910.


The Christmas Google Doodle


Each package gets larger with a mouse-over, and a click on it returns search results pertinent to a specific country or the particular items featured in a scene. This one is from December 24, 2010.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: Google, google doodle, Mark Twain

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