Saturday’s Google celebrates the 971st birthday of Omar Khayyam, the medieval Persian mathematician, astronomer and poet.

Khayyam was born on 18 May 1048 in Nishapur near Mashhad in eastern Persia.

He wrote numerous works on mathematics, and redesigned the Persian calendar.

He died on 4 December 1131.

Poetry attributed to him became famous in English in the 1859 work the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, translated by Edward Fitzgerald.

The Khayyam doodle has a wide reach, covering North America, Asia, North Africa and parts of Europe.

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