--- title: Magna Carta Google Doodle Honors 800th Birthday description: Google Doodle celebrates the 800th anniversary of the famous legal document canonical: https://time.com/3920911/google-doodle-magna-carta/ author: Tara John article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-15T11:46:31.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-01T09:08:29.715Z og:title: Magna Carta Google Doodle Honors 800th Birthday og:description: Google Doodle celebrates the 800th anniversary of the famous legal document og:url: https://time.com/3920911/google-doodle-magna-carta/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta7193924e6e1b8f9/6988548306f2c17ae333aa3f/screen_shot_2015-06-15_at_12-59-37.png?branch=production&width=647&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 647 og:image:height: 364 og:image:alt: screen_shot_2015-06-15_at_12.59.37 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Magna Carta Google Doodle Honors 800th Birthday twitter:description: Google Doodle celebrates the 800th anniversary of the famous legal document twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta7193924e6e1b8f9/6988548306f2c17ae333aa3f/screen_shot_2015-06-15_at_12-59-37.png?branch=production&width=647&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # New Google Doodle Honors the Magna Carta > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-sub-2026q3/newsletters?i=262be4a7-68c5-427e-9fd0-1aff8e6a8d45&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) * TIME Subscriptions: [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-sub-2026q3/subscribe?i=262be4a7-68c5-427e-9fd0-1aff8e6a8d45&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) ## Video: How Google Makes its Doodles [Watch (HLS stream): How Google Makes its Doodles](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/upF0qp1E.m3u8) (3:23)  _Published 2018-07-07. Our videographer went to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California to meet some of the designers and coders who create the special, clever variations on the Google.com logo known as_ by [Tara John](https://time.com/author/tara-john/) ## Tara John Jun 15, 2015 11:46 AM UTC Our videographer went to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California to meet some of the designers and coders who create the special, clever variations on the Google.com logo known as by [Tara John](https://time.com/author/tara-john/) ## Tara John Jun 15, 2015 11:46 AM UTC Google has honored the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta with one of its elaborate moving doodles. On June 15, 1215, on the banks of the River Thames in Runneymede, England, King John sealed the Magna Carta, Latin for Great Charter, temporarily ending a dispute with a group of rebellious barons. To this day, the Magna Carta is held up as the foundation of the constitutional and legal framework of the U.K. It set out the legal right to a fair trial, put limits on taxation without representation and ensured that the King was not above the law. The Magna Carta was a popular reference for the American colonists before the War of Independence and inspired the American constitution.  The Magna Carta was the solutiuon to a dispute between a group of barons, led by Essex landowner Robert Fitzwalter, who were unhappy with the amount of money the King was taxing them and the way the country was being run. The rebel barons created an army and took over London, forcing King John to negotiate with them. In the doodle, King John is surrounded by a group of barons who force him to put his seal on the Magna Carta. The barons walk off leaving one held back by a ball and chain. King John laughs signifying he believes he has made an agreement which he will not keep but is then shocked when the imprisoned baron is freed, symbolizing the fact that although King John agreed to the Magna Carta in bad faith, it still bound kings to its principles. The document, which was hand-written on sheepskin in Latin and first drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury was copied and sent across England. Four of the original copies survive. In agreeing to the Magna Carta King John became the first monarch to enter a legal contract that restricted his power and he agreed that even kings can be tried in a court of law. The King, however, was not prepared to abide by the charter and he got the Pope to rule the charter invalid a few month later. After John died in 1216, his son Henry III issued a new version of the charter which became an important part of English law. ### See Google Doodles Through the Years  Aug. 26, 2015 For the 70th anniversary of La Tomatina. Google  May 26, 2015 In celebration of the 64th birthday of Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. Google  March 31, 2015 Honoring the 126th anniversary of the public opening of the Eiffel Tower. Google  Mar. 20, 2015 To celebrate the start of spring and the vernal equinox, Google created a stop-motion animation of flowers in bloom. Google  Nov. 12, 2014 For the landing of the Philae lander, the first spacecraft on a moving comet, Google created a gyrating lander with passing stars. Google  Sept. 9, 2014 For Tolstoy's 186th birthday, the Google Doodle team created an appropriately long click-through doodle. Google  May 27, 2014 For the Rachel Louise Carson doodle, the team surrounded her with birds and sea creatures to celebrate her 107th birthday. Google  May 4 2014 For Audrey Hepburn's 85th birthday, the doodle team adapted an image from a 1956 black and white photograph taken by Yousuf Karsh. Google  June 9, 2011 The doodlers came up with the idea of a playable logo, then pegged it to guitar innovator Les Paul's 96th birthday. Turning on composer mode allows you to create songs that you can share online. Google  March 24, 2011 The Harry Houdini doodle was created in the style of the old posters advertising the death-defying magician. Google  Nov. 25, 2010 Chef Ina Garten prepared this Thanksgiving feast, which Google photographed. If you clicked on a dish, her recipe appeared. Google  May 7, 2010 Google asked the San Francisco Ballet to pose and twirl to re-create Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. Google  Oct. 7, 2009 Scan the doodle that marks the first patent for the bar code and you'll decode Google embedded within. Google  March 2, 2009 The doodlers arranged classic Dr. Seuss characters, like the Cat in the Hat and the Grinch, to form the logo's letters. Google  Jan. 28, 2009 There was no other way to honor abstract artist Jackson Pollack than with a chaotic drip painting. Google  Jan. 19, 2009 Guest artist Shepard Fairey (famed for his Obama HOPE poster) did a sketch for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Google  Jan. 28, 2008 Early on, Google used Lego blocks as casing for hard disks. Later it feted Lego's 50th anniversary. Google  April 22, 2007 A melting iceberg for Earth Day is one of many eco-minded doodles the team has created. Google  Jan. 4, 2006 Enter the world of out-there doodles — Google in braille. Only problem: you can't feel it. Google  March 30, 2005 The Van Gogh doodle appeared in an era when doodles began to get more ambitious, and it's one of the doodlers' best interpretations of a specific painter. Google  Aug. 13, 2003 Early doodles of famous folk tended to be simple, like this silhouette of Alfred Hitchcock. Google  March 14, 2003 The early doodles were often simple but playful, like this mustachioed drawing of Albert Einstein to celebrate his birthday. Google  Nov. 14, 2001 Google's first doodler, Dennis Hwang, gave the logo an Impressionist look for Claude Monet's birthday. Google  Aug. 30, 1998 When employees left for the Burning Man festival, the Google logo became a cryptic BE BACK LATER sign. "There was no master plan for doodles at that point," says doodler-in-chief Ryan Germick. Google ## Transcript [00:01] >>The Doodle [00:07] team was able to meet Ira Glass from This American Life, [00:10] and he was just meeting us for fun. I guess, I'm not even [00:13] sure why he was here, but we talked about potentially [00:17] collaborating and they thought that it'd be fun to collaborate [00:21] with us on Valentine's Day, so I took the lead on [00:25] this project. [00:34] >>We do Valentine's Day pretty much every year, and [00:36] we've done your typical like lovebirds and, you know, [00:39] flowers and things like that. But Ira and his [00:44] team are awesome. [00:44] >>They were able to pull stories that they have collected [00:47] over the years, they've recorded new stories for us, and [00:49] they're all about love in all different respects of the word. [00:55] They sent us maybe 8 or 10 stories and they're all really [00:58] fun and really sweet. [00:59] >>The stories run the [ unk ]. There is [01:03] a story about middle school love. [01:03] >>I was in the cafeteria, just got [01:07] on a drink of root beer and she walks up to me. [01:11] >>There is a story about a new bride who's in doubt that [01:14] she made a mistake. [01:14] >>My husband, me and I, we're just so worried, his face I [01:14] could tell. I said, " Where he could be ," you know, and [01:20] I-- and I called the police because I thought [01:24] he got lost or something happened. [01:28] >>When I first got the audio from Ira, my co- worker and I [01:31] listened to it together and we wrote down bullet points of [01:34] where we wanted to have a little drawing come up. [01:37] >>One of my favorite stories, it involves middle schoolers. [01:43] We're titling it, " Puppy Love" so true to the title, I just-- I just [01:46] drew everyone as a dog. [01:47] >>Each stories are-- containing a little candy heart. [01:47] >>And when you click on it, the heart will flip, [01:52] the audio will play and you will also see the images that [01:55] we've drawn to accompany the phrases. So, [01:59] now we are all going to brainstorms together because we [02:02] need the creative side and we also need the technical side [02:04] to tell us what is possible and what isn't possible. For this [02:08] one, it's a pretty conservative on the interactive side, [02:12] because we didn't want to overshadow the audio. When I [02:15] first started, they were no engineers on the team, we only [02:17] did static doodles, but since then, we've started doing more [02:21] animated stuff, more interactive work, and for that we [02:24] needed a dedicated team. [02:24] >>Some of our most like ambitious to those have come [02:26] from engineers that are just incredibly talented [02:30] and spare similar time for our projects. [02:33] >>Sometimes the illustrators will come up with an idea that [02:36] is way too wacky and just not possible yet. The technology [02:41] hasn't been invented, but sometimes we're too [02:43] conservative and it's great to have the engineers there to [02:46] tell us that we can actually be way wackier with our ideas. [02:53] The relationship with my engineer on this was to just keep [02:56] my files size at a reasonable capacity, I was getting [03:00] a little bit ambitious with how many frames I wanted to draw [03:03] and my engineers said, " Hey, you need to double it ." [03:07] >>We tried to do as many doodles as we possibly can. [03:08] We're a pretty small team, relative to how many audiences [03:11] are out there [ unk ], but yeah, we-- you never know what [03:14] you're gonna get. 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