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Showing posts from October 5, 2014

Thor Heyerdahl's 100th Birthday Marked by a Google Doodle

Google on Monday is celebrating the 100th birth anniversary of Thor Heyerdahl with an animated doodle. The Norwegian 'ethnographer and adventurer' Thor Heyerdahl was most famous for his 8,000km 'Kon-Tiki' voyage across the Pacific Ocean. Born on October 6 1914, the subject of Monday's  Google  doodle Thor Heyerdahl as an ethnographer was trained in biology, botany, zoology and geography at the University of Oslo. Ethnography, is the systematic study of people and cultures where the researcher observes a society from the point of view of the subject of the study. Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki expedition is the best known of his distinguished career, with the ethnographer showing just why the appellation 'adventurer' was appropriate for him. Sailing 8,000km in a handmade raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands, Thor Heyerdahl aimed to demonstrate that ancient cultures could have made contact with each other across vast geographical distances wi