Supposed to be celebrating: Children’s Day 2003.
Reason for rejection: Too childish.

Supposed to be celebrating: 150 Years of Cigarettes.
Reason for rejection: Too politically incorrect.

Supposed to be celebrating: 50th Anniversary of Product Placement.
Reason for rejection: Starbucks didn’t pay enough.

Supposed to be celebrating: 5 Years of Google motto “Don’t be evil.”
Reason for rejection: Too self-obsessed.

Supposed to be celebrating: 130th Birthday of Mondrian.
Reason for rejection: Too abstract

Supposed to be celebrating: 90th Anniversary of the Copyright Act.
Reason for rejection: Potential trademark infringement for using the © symbol

Supposed to be celebrating: 20th Anniversary of the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Reason for rejection: Severe complaints by the Pet Duck Association.

Supposed to be celebrating: The 65th Birthday of Googol, a 1 with 100 zeroes.
Reason for rejection: Too geeky.

Supposed to be celebrating: This was one of two drafts to honor M.C. Escher.
Reason for rejection: Too creepy.

Supposed to be celebrating: Two decades of the JPEG image compression algorithm.
Reason for rejection: Compression too lossy.

[via Google Blogoscoped]