Google doodle celebrates adventurous veteran journalist Nellie Bly's 151st birthday

Today, Google is celebrating the 151st birthday of Nellie Bly, a pioneer in investigative journalism, with a musical doodle. Now, there is more than one reason why Google chose to do so. Nellie Bly is the pen name of Elizabeth Jane Cochran. When The Pittsburgh Dispatch wrote a regressive editorial on women, she retaliated with an equally  impressive rebuttal. This helped start her career as a journalist with the same news daily.  Unlike women those days who wrote articles on fashion, gardening and other soft topics, she chose hard-hitting stories on the poor and oppressed. She was also the first woman war correspondent in the US, who covered the World War I from Austria. Jules Verne’s character Phileas Fogg went ‘Around The World In 80 Days,’ but Bly achieved the same feat in 72 days. Yes, she is also the author of the book - Around the world in 72 days - that is based on her own expedition in which she visited many countries including France, England, Ceylon, Egypt, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan.  She travelled by steamships and sailboats, and sent dispatches back to her newspaper as she circled the globe. “Instead of sitting idly and just observing, she was always a part of the action and conversation, despite the fact that public spaces were typically reserved for men at the time,” the doodle creator Katy Wu writes. “We love her adventurous spirit, and we share her belief that women can do anything and be anything they want,” writes Wu. Unlike the previous doodles, this one is completely based on the song that plays in the background. If you listen to it clearly, Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is the singer and also the writer and composer of this special song for Nellie. “Oh, Nellie, take us all around the world and break those rules ‘cause you’re our girl,” the song goes. From starting her career and covering topic that women those days wouldn’t to taking the world trip, the animated doodle covers it all while Karen O sings in the background.