Confucius' birthday celebrated with custom Google logo

Born in 551 BC, the influential Chinese philosopher Confucius was known for his intelligence and foresight. There is little chance, however, that even he could have predicted how the Western world would celebrate the 2560th anniversary of his birth: with a custom logo for search engine Google.

Having been brought up in poverty, and working as a clerk, a shepherd and, at the age of 53, Justice Minister in the state of Lu, Confucius began to expound the philosophy which grew to become the backbone of Eastern politics and thinking for centuries.

The Chinese are celebrating the event with a three-day conference, the China International Confucius Cultural Festival, held in QuFu, the city of his birth. As part of the celebrations, memorial prizes will be handed out in his honour, and the festival will also see the release of an updated genealogy of Confucius' family tree, purportedly linking Confucius with his modern day descendants, both in China and around the world.

Meanwhile, search engine Google has chosen to mark the date with another in its series of "Google doodles", with an image depicting Confucius in a typically contemplative pose adorning the Google homepage. It is one of several recent logos marking such events as Google's 11th birthday and the anniversary of the birth of H.G. Wells.