Today is the 101st birthday of Akira Yoshizawa who is known as the "grandmaster of origami." He was born in Kaminokawa, Japan and died from pneumonia on his birthday. It is pretty rare to die on your birthday and some cultures take it as a sign of something spiritually significant to die on the day you were born. He lived a long life, living to the age of 94.
I am pretty sure every one of you made your own origami at one point in your life and we have Akira Yoshizawa to thank for it.
He founded the International Origami Centre in Tokyo in 1954 at the age of 43, created 50,000 models of Origami and wrote 18 books. He was the international cultural ambassador for Japan, and received tremendous honors over his life for his contributions.
Here is one more honor for his work, having a Google Doodle placed on the Google home pages to remember your birthday.
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.
