title: Signal (software)

text: In October 2014, researchers from Ruhr University Bochum published an analysis of the Signal Protocol. Among other findings, they presented an unknown key-share attack on the protocol, but in general, they found that it was secure. In October 2016, researchers from UK's University of Oxford, Queensland University of Technology in Australia, and Canada's McMaster University published a formal analysis of the protocol. They concluded that the protocol was cryptographically sound. In July 2017, researchers from Ruhr University Bochum found during another analysis of group messengers a purely theoretic attack against the group protocol of Signal: A user who knows the secret group ID of a group (due to having been a group member previously or stealing it from a member's device) can become a member of the group. Since the group ID cannot be guessed and such member changes are displayed to the remaining members, this attack is likely to be difficult to carry out without being detected.


title: Signal (software)

text: , the Signal Protocol has been implemented into WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype, and Google Allo, making it possible for the conversations of "more than a billion people worldwide" to be end-to-end encrypted. In Google Allo, Skype and Facebook Messenger, conversations are not encrypted with the Signal Protocol by default; they only offer end-to-end encryption in an optional mode.


title: Signal (software)

text: Up until March 2017, Signal's voice calls were encrypted with SRTP and the ZRTP key-agreement protocol, which was developed by Phil Zimmermann. In March 2017, Signal transitioned to a new WebRTC-based calling system that introduced the ability to make video calls. Signal's voice and video calling functionalities use the Signal Protocol channel for authentication instead of ZRTP.


title: Signal (software)

text: To verify that a correspondent is really the person that they claim to be, Signal users can compare key fingerprints (or scan QR codes) out-of-band. The platform employs a trust on first use mechanism in order to notify the user if a correspondent's key changes.


title: Signal (software)

text: Once the messages are received and decrypted on a user's device, they are stored locally in a SQLite database that is encrypted with SQLCipher. The key to decrypt this database is also stored locally on the user's device and can be accessed if the device is unlocked. In December 2020, Cellebrite published a blog post announcing that one of their products could now access this key and use it to "decrypt the Signal app". Technology reporters later published articles about how Cellebrite had claimed to have the ability to "break into the Signal app" and "crack Signal's encryption". This latter interpretation was rejected by several experts, as well as representatives from Signal, who said the original post by Cellebrite had been about accessing data on "an unlocked Android phone in their physical possession" and that they "could have just opened the app to look at the messages". Similar extraction tools also exist for iOS devices and Signal Desktop.


title: Signal (software)

text: Signal relies on centralized servers that are maintained by Signal Messenger. In addition to routing Signal's messages, the servers also facilitate the discovery of contacts who are also registered Signal users and the automatic exchange of users' public keys. By default, Signal's voice and video calls are peer-to-peer. If the caller is not in the receiver's address book, the call is routed through a server in order to hide the users' IP addresses.


title: Signal (software)

text: The servers store registered users' phone numbers, public key material and push tokens which are necessary for setting up calls and transmitting messages. In order to determine which contacts are also Signal users, cryptographic hashes of the user's contact numbers are periodically transmitted to the server. The server then checks to see if those match any of the SHA256 hashes of registered users and tells the client if any matches are found. The hashed numbers are thereafter discarded from the server. In 2014, Moxie Marlinspike wrote that it is easy to calculate a map of all possible hash inputs to hash outputs and reverse the mapping because of the limited preimage space (the set of all possible hash inputs) of phone numbers, and that a "practical privacy preserving contact discovery remains an unsolved problem." In September 2017, Signal's developers announced that they were working on a way for the Signal client applications to "efficiently and scalably determine whether the contacts in their address book are Signal users without revealing the contacts in their address book to the Signal service."


title: Signal (software)

text: All client-server communications are protected by TLS. Signal's developers have asserted that their servers do not keep logs about who called whom and when. In June 2016, Marlinspike told "The Intercept" that "the closest piece of information to metadata that the Signal server stores is the last time each user connected to the server, and the precision of this information is reduced to the day, rather than the hour, minute, and second".


title: Signal (software)

text: The group messaging mechanism is designed so that the servers do not have access to the membership list, group title, or group icon. Instead, the creation, updating, joining, and leaving of groups is done by the clients, which deliver pairwise messages to the participants in the same way that one-to-one messages are delivered.


title: Signal (software)

text: Signal's server architecture was federated between December 2013 and February 2016. In December 2013, it was announced that the messaging protocol Signal uses had successfully been integrated into the Android-based open-source operating system CyanogenMod. Since CyanogenMod 11.0, the client logic was contained in a system app called WhisperPush. According to Signal's developers, the Cyanogen team ran their own Signal messaging server for WhisperPush clients, which federated with the main server, so that both clients could exchange messages with each other. The WhisperPush source code was available under the GPLv3 license. In February 2016, the CyanogenMod team discontinued WhisperPush and recommended that its users switch to Signal. In May 2016, Moxie Marlinspike wrote that federation with the CyanogenMod servers had degraded the user experience and held back development, and that their servers will probably not federate with other servers again.


title: Signal (software)

text: In May 2016, Moxie Marlinspike requested that a third-party client called LibreSignal not use the Signal service or the Signal name. As a result, on 24 May 2016 the LibreSignal project posted that the project was "abandoned". The functionality provided by LibreSignal was subsequently incorporated into Signal by Marlinspike.


title: Signal (software)

text: The complete source code of the Signal clients for Android, iOS and desktop is available on GitHub under a free software license. This enables interested parties to examine the code and help the developers verify that everything is behaving as expected. It also allows advanced users to compile their own copies of the applications and compare them with the versions that are distributed by Signal Messenger. In March 2016, Moxie Marlinspike wrote that, apart from some shared libraries that are not compiled with the project build due to a lack of Gradle NDK support, Signal for Android is reproducible. Signal's servers are partially open source, but the server software's anti-spam component is proprietary and closed source due to security concerns.


title: Signal (software)

text: In October 2014, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) included Signal in their updated surveillance self-defense guide. In November 2014, Signal received a perfect score on the EFF's secure messaging scorecard; it received points for having communications encrypted in transit, having communications encrypted with keys the provider does not have access to (end-to-end encryption), making it possible for users to independently verify their correspondents' identities, having past communications secure if the keys are stolen (forward secrecy), having the code open to independent review (open source), having the security designs well-documented, and having a recent independent security audit. At the time, "ChatSecure + Orbot", Pidgin (with OTR), Silent Phone, and Telegram's optional "secret chats" also received seven out of seven points on the scorecard.


title: Signal (software)

text: Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has endorsed Signal on multiple occasions. In his keynote speech at SXSW in March 2014, he praised Signal's predecessors (TextSecure and RedPhone) for their ease of use. In December 2014, "Der Spiegel" leaked slides from an internal NSA presentation dating to June 2012 in which the NSA deemed Signal's encrypted voice calling component (RedPhone) on its own as a "major threat" to its mission of accessing users' private data, and when used in conjunction with other privacy tools such as Cspace, Tor, Tails, and TrueCrypt was ranked as "catastrophic" and led to a "near-total loss/lack of insight to target communications [and] presence".


title: Signal (software)

text: Following the 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak, it was reported by "Vanity Fair" that Marc Elias (the general counsel for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign) had instructed DNC staffers to exclusively use Signal when saying anything negative about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.


title: Signal (software)

text: In March 2017, Signal was approved by the sergeant at arms of the U.S. Senate for use by senators and their staff.


title: Signal (software)

text: On 27 September 2019, Natalie Silvanovich, a security engineer working in Google's vulnerability research team at Project Zero, disclosed how a bug in the Android Signal client could let an attacker spy on a user without their knowledge. The bug allowed an attacker to phone a target device, mute the call, and the call would complete - keeping the audio open but without the owner being aware of that (however they would still be aware of a ring and / or a vibration from the initial call). The bug was fixed the same day that it was reported and patched in release 4.47.7 of the app for Android.


title: Signal (software)

text: In February 2020, the European Commission recommended that its staff use Signal. Following the George Floyd protests, which began in May 2020, Signal was downloaded 121,000 times in the U.S. between 25 May and 4 June. In July 2020, Signal became the most downloaded app in Hong Kong on both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store after the passage of the Hong Kong national security law.


title: Signal (software)

text: , Signal is a contact method for securely providing tips to major news outlets such as "The Washington Post", "The Guardian", "The New York Times", and "The Wall Street Journal".


title: Signal (software)

text: Candiru claims the ability to capture data from Signal Private Messenger with their spyware, at a fee of €500.000.


title: Signal (software)

text: On 9 August 2022, Ismail Sabri Yaakob, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, reported that his Signal account was "hacked" and infiltrated by a third party, sending out messages and impersonating the politician. No details were disclosed regarding the method used to gain access to the account.


title: Signal (software)

text: In April 2021, Signal announced the addition of a cryptocurrency wallet feature that would allow users to send and receive payments in MobileCoin. This received criticism from security expert Bruce Schneier, who had previously praised the software. Schneier stated that this would bloat the client and attract unwanted attention from the authorities. The wallet functionality was initially only available in certain countries, but was later enabled globally in November 2021.


title: Signal (software)

text: In December 2016, Egypt blocked access to Signal. In response, Signal's developers added domain fronting to their service. This allows Signal users in a specific country to circumvent censorship by making it look like they are connecting to a different internet-based service. , Signal's domain fronting is enabled by default in Egypt, UAE, Oman, Qatar, Iran, Cuba, Uzbekistan and Ukraine.


title: Signal (software)

text: , Signal was blocked in Iran. Signal's domain fronting feature relies on the Google App Engine (GAE) service. This does not work in Iran because Google has blocked Iranian access to GAE in order to comply with U.S. sanctions.


title: Signal (software)

text: In early 2018, Google App Engine made an internal change to stop domain fronting for all countries. Due to this issue, Signal made a public change to use Amazon CloudFront for domain fronting. However, AWS also announced that they would be making changes to their service to prevent domain fronting. As a result, Signal said that they would start investigating new methods/approaches. Signal switched from AWS back to Google in April 2019.


title: Signal (software)

text: In January 2021, Iran removed the app from app stores, and blocked Signal. Signal was later blocked by China in March 2021.


title: Signal (software)

text: In March 2021, the United Nations recommended Myanmar residents use Signal and ProtonMail to pass and preserve evidence of human rights violations committed during the 2021 coup.


title: Signal (software)

text: By design, Signal is not able to read user messages and this has been confirmed by independent audits of Signal's algorithms. Signal's terms of service also state that the product cannot be used to violate the law. According to a former employee, Signal's leadership at the time told him they would say something "if and when people start abusing Signal or doing things that we think are terrible". In January 2021, the position of Signal's leadership was to take a "hands-off approach to moderation" because they are not able to read user messages and "don't want to be a media company".


title: Signal (software)

text: In 2016, authorities in India arrested members of a suspected ISIS-affiliated terrorist cell that communicated via Signal and Telegram.


title: Signal (software)

text: Far right right-wing militias and white nationalists used Signal for organizing their actions including the Unite the Right II rally in 2018, after the Charlottesville car attack at the Unite the Right rally in 2017 had killed 1 and injured 35.


title: Danny Kaye

text: Danny Kaye (born David Daniel Kaminsky; ; January 18, 1911 – March 3, 1987) was an American actor, comedian, singer and dancer. His performances featured physical comedy, idiosyncratic pantomimes, and rapid-fire novelty songs.


title: Danny Kaye

text: Kaye starred in 17 films, notably "Wonder Man" (1945), "The Kid from Brooklyn" (1946), "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (1947), "The Inspector General" (1949), "Hans Christian Andersen" (1952), "White Christmas" (1954), and "The Court Jester" (1955). His films were popular, especially for his performances of patter songs and favorites such as "Inchworm" and "The Ugly Duckling".


title: Danny Kaye

text: He was the first ambassador-at-large of UNICEF in 1954 and received the French Legion of Honour in 1986 for his years of work with the organization.


title: Danny Kaye

text: David Daniel Kaminsky was born in Brooklyn, New York, on January 18, 1911 (though he would later say 1913), to Ukrainian–Jewish immigrants Jacob and Clara ("née" Nemerovsky) Kaminsky. He was the youngest of three sons. His parents and older brothers Larry and Mac left Yekaterinoslav (then part of Novorossia, Russian empire) two years before Danny's birth; he was their only son born in the United States.


title: Danny Kaye

text: He attended Public School 149 in East New York, Brooklyn (eventually renamed to honor him)—where he began entertaining his classmates with songs and jokes. He attended Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn, but he did not graduate.


title: Danny Kaye

text: His mother died when he was in his early teens. Not long after, Kaye and his friend Louis ran away to Florida. Kaye sang while Louis played the guitar, and the pair eked out a living for a while. When Kaye returned to New York, his father did not pressure him to return to school or work, giving his son the chance to mature and discover his abilities. Kaye said that as a young boy, he had wanted to be a surgeon, but the family could not afford medical education.


title: Danny Kaye

text: After leaving school, he held a succession of jobs as a soda jerk, auto insurance investigator, and office clerk. Most ended with him being fired. He lost the insurance job when he made an error that cost the insurance company $40,000 ($600,000 in 2019 adjusted for inflation). A dentist who hired him to look after his office over lunch and run errands fired him when he found Kaye using his dental drill on the office woodwork. In 1939, Kaye met the same dentist's daughter, Sylvia Fine, at an audition, and in 1940 they eloped. He learned his trade in his teenage years in the Catskills as a tummler in the Borscht Belt.


title: Danny Kaye

text: Kaye's first break came in 1933 when he joined the Three Terpsichoreans, a vaudeville dance act. They opened in Utica, New York, where he used the stage name Danny Kaye for the first time. The act toured the United States and in Asia with the show "La Vie Paree". The troupe left for a six-month tour of Asia on February 8, 1934. During its stay in Osaka, Japan, a typhoon hit the city. The troupe's hotel suffered heavy damage. The strong wind hurled a piece of the hotel's cornice into Kaye's room. By evening's performance time, the city was in the grip of the storm. With no power, the audience became restless and nervous. To calm them, Kaye went on stage holding a flashlight to illuminate his face and sang every song he could recall as loudly as he was able.


title: Danny Kaye

text: The experience of trying to entertain audiences who did not speak English inspired him to do the pantomime gestures, songs, and facial expressions that eventually made his reputation. Sometimes, he found them necessary when ordering a meal. Kaye's daughter Dena relates a story her father told about being in a restaurant in China and trying to order chicken. Kaye flapped his arms and clucked, giving the waiter an imitation of a chicken. The waiter nodded in understanding, bringing Kaye two eggs. His interest in cooking began on the tour.


title: Danny Kaye

text: Jobs were in short supply when Kaye returned to the United States, and he struggled for bookings. One job was working in a burlesque revue with fan dancer Sally Rand. After the dancer dropped a fan while trying to chase away a fly, Kaye was hired to watch the fans, so they were always held in front of her.


title: Danny Kaye

text: In 1937, Kaye's film debut came from a contract with New York-based Educational Pictures for a series of two-reel comedies. He usually played a manic, dark-haired, fast-talking Russian in these low-budget shorts, opposite young hopefuls June Allyson and Imogene Coca. The Kaye series ended abruptly when the studio shut down in 1938. He was working in the Catskills in 1937 under the name Danny Kolbin.


title: Danny Kaye

text: His next venture was a short-lived Broadway show with Sylvia Fine as the pianist, lyricist, and composer. "The Straw Hat Revue" opened on September 29, 1939, and closed after ten weeks, but critics noticed Kaye's work. The reviews brought an offer for both Kaye and his bride Sylvia to work at La Martinique, a New York City nightclub. Kaye performed with Sylvia as his accompanist. At La Martinique, playwright Moss Hart saw Danny perform, and that led to Hart's casting him in his hit Broadway comedy "Lady in the Dark".


title: Danny Kaye

text: In 1941, aged 30, Kaye scored a triumph playing Russell Paxton in "Lady in the Dark", starring Gertrude Lawrence. His show-stopping number was "Tschaikowsky (and Other Russians)" by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin in which he sang the names of a string of Russian composers at breakneck speed, seemingly without taking a breath. In the next Broadway season, he was the star of a show about a young man who is drafted called "Let's Face It!".


title: Danny Kaye

text: His feature film debut was in producer Samuel Goldwyn's Technicolor 1944 comedy "Up in Arms", a remake of Goldwyn's Eddie Cantor comedy "Whoopee!" (1930). Rival producer Robert M. Savini cashed in by compiling three of Kaye's Educational Pictures shorts into a patchwork feature entitled "The Birth of a Star" (1945). Studio mogul Goldwyn wanted Kaye's prominent nose fixed to look less Jewish; Kaye refused, but he did allow his red hair to be dyed blond, apparently because it looked better in Technicolor.


title: Danny Kaye

text: Kaye starred in a radio program, "The Danny Kaye Show", on CBS from 1945–46. The program's popularity rose quickly. Within a year, he tied with Jimmy Durante for fifth place in the "Radio Daily" popularity poll. Kaye was asked to participate in a USO tour following the end of World War II. It meant that he would be absent from his radio show for nearly two months at the beginning of the season. Kaye's friends filled in with a different guest host each week. Kaye was the first American actor to visit postwar Tokyo. He had toured there some ten years before with the vaudeville troupe. When Kaye asked to be released from his radio contract in mid-1946, he agreed not to accept a regular radio show for one year and only limited guest appearances on other radio programs. Many of the show's episodes survive today, notable for Kaye's opening signature patter ("Git gat gittle, giddle-di-ap, giddle-de-tommy, riddle de biddle de roop, da-reep, fa-san, skeedle de woo-da, fiddle de wada, reep!").


title: Danny Kaye

text: Kaye starred in several movies with actress Virginia Mayo in the 1940s and is known for films such as "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (1947), "The Inspector General" (1949), "On the Riviera" (1951) co-starring Gene Tierney, "Knock on Wood" (1954), "White Christmas" (1954), "The Court Jester" (1956), and "Merry Andrew" (1958). Kaye starred in two pictures based on biographies, "Hans Christian Andersen" (1952) the Danish storyteller and "The Five Pennies" (1959) about jazz pioneer Red Nichols. His wife, writer/lyricist Sylvia Fine, wrote many tongue-twisting songs for which Kaye became famous. She was also an associate film producer. Some of Kaye's films included the theme of doubles, two people who look identical (both Danny Kaye) being mistaken for each other to comic effect. While his wife wrote most of Kaye's material, he created much of it himself, often while performing. Kaye had one character he never shared with the public; Kaplan, the owner of a rubber company, came to life only for family and friends. His wife, Sylvia, described the Kaplan character:


title: Danny Kaye

text: When he appeared at the London Palladium in 1948, he "roused the Royal family to laughter and was the first of many performers who have turned British variety into an American preserve." "Life" magazine described his reception as "worshipful hysteria" and noted that the royal family, for the first time, left the royal box to watch from the front row of the orchestra. He related that he had no idea of the familial connections when the Marquess of Milford Haven introduced himself after a show and said he would like his cousins to see Kaye perform. Kaye stated he never returned to the venue because there was no way to recreate the magic of that time. Kaye had an invitation to return to London for a "Royal Variety Performance" in November of the same year. When the invitation arrived, Kaye was busy with "The Inspector General" (which had a working title of "Happy Times"). Warner Bros. stopped the film to allow their star to attend. When his Decca labelmates The Andrews Sisters began their engagement at the London Palladium on the heels of Kaye's successful 1948 appearance there, the trio was well received and David Lewin of the "Daily Express" declared: "The audience gave the Andrews Sisters the Danny Kaye roar!"


title: Danny Kaye

text: He hosted the 24th Academy Awards in 1952. The program was broadcast on radio; telecasts of the Oscar ceremony came later. During the 1950s, Kaye visited Australia, where he played Buttons in a production of "Cinderella" in Sydney. In 1953, Kaye started a production company, Dena Pictures, named for his daughter. "Knock on Wood" was the first film produced by his firm. The firm expanded into television in 1960 under the name Belmont Television.


title: Danny Kaye

text: Kaye entered television in 1956, on the CBS show "See It Now" with Edward R. Murrow. "The Secret Life of Danny Kaye" combined his 50,000-mile, ten-country tour as UNICEF ambassador with music and humor. His first solo effort was in 1960 with a one-hour special produced by Sylvia and sponsored by General Motors, with similar specials in 1961 and 1962.


title: Danny Kaye

text: He hosted "The Danny Kaye Show" from 1963 to 1967; it won four Emmy awards and a Peabody award. His last cinematic starring role came in 1963's "The Man from the Diners' Club".


title: Danny Kaye

text: Beginning in 1964, he acted as television host to the CBS telecasts of MGM's "The Wizard of Oz". Kaye did a stint as a "What's My Line?" mystery guest on the Sunday-night CBS-TV quiz program. Kaye was later a guest panelist on that show. He also appeared on the interview program "Here's Hollywood". In the 1970s, Kaye tore a ligament in his leg during the run of the Richard Rodgers musical "Two by Two", but went on with the show, appearing with his leg in a cast and cavorting on stage in a wheelchair. He had done much the same on his television show in 1964, when his right leg and foot were burned from a cooking accident. Camera shots were planned so television viewers did not see Kaye in his wheelchair.


title: Danny Kaye

text: In 1976, he played Geppetto in a television musical adaptation of "Pinocchio" with Sandy Duncan in the title role. Kaye portrayed Captain Hook opposite Mia Farrow in a musical version of "Peter Pan" featuring songs by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse. He later guest-starred in episodes of "The Muppet Show" and "The Cosby Show", and in the 1980s revival "The Twilight Zone".


title: Danny Kaye

text: In many films, as well as on stage, Kaye proved to be an able actor, singer, dancer, and comedian. He showed his serious side as ambassador for UNICEF and in his dramatic role in the memorable TV film "Skokie", when he played a Holocaust survivor. Before his death in 1987, Kaye conducted an orchestra during a comical series of concerts organized for UNICEF fundraising. Kaye received two Academy Awards: an Academy Honorary Award in 1955 and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1982. That year he received the Screen Actors Guild Annual Award.


title: Danny Kaye

text: In 1980, Kaye hosted and sang in the 25th anniversary of Disneyland celebration and hosted the opening celebration for Epcot in 1982 (EPCOT Center at the time). Both were aired on primetime television in the U.S.


title: Danny Kaye

text: While Kaye claimed he could not read music, he was said to have perfect pitch. A flamboyant performer with his own distinctive style, "easily adapting from outrageous novelty songs to tender ballads" (according to critic Jason Ankeny), in 1945 Kaye began hosting his own CBS radio program, in which he performed a number of hit songs, including "Dinah" and "Minnie the Moocher".


title: Danny Kaye

text: In 1947, Kaye teamed up with The Andrews Sisters (Patty, Maxene, and LaVerne) on Decca Records, producing the No. 3 "Billboard" hit "Civilization (Bongo, Bongo, Bongo)". The success of the pairing prompted both acts to record through 1950, producing such rhythmically comical fare as "The Woody Woodpecker Song" (based on the bird from the Walter Lantz cartoons and a "Billboard" hit for the quartet), "Put 'em in a Box, Tie 'em with a Ribbon (And Throw 'em in the Deep Blue Sea)", "The Big Brass Band from Brazil", "It's a Quiet Town (In Crossbone County)", "Amelia Cordelia McHugh (Mc Who?)", "Ching-a-ra-sa-sa", and a duet by Danny and Patty Andrews of "Orange Colored Sky". The acts teamed for two yuletide favorites: a frantic, harmonic rendition of "A Merry Christmas at Grandmother's House (Over the River and Through the Woods)" and a duet by Danny and Patty, "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth".


title: Danny Kaye

text: Kaye's debut album, "Columbia Presents Danny Kaye", had been released in 1942 by Columbia Records with songs performed to the accompaniment of Maurice Abravanel and Johnny Green. The album was reissued as a Columbia LP in 1949 and is described by the critic Bruce Eder as "a bit tamer than some of the stuff that Kaye hit with later in the '40s and in the '50s and, for reasons best understood by the public, doesn't attract nearly the interest of his kids' records and overt comedy routines".


title: Danny Kaye

text: In 1950, a Decca single, "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts", was released, and became another chart hit for him. His second Columbia LP album "Danny Kaye Entertains" (1953, Columbia) included five songs recorded in 1941 from his Broadway musical "Lady in the Dark", most notably "Tschaikowsky (and Other Russians)".


title: Danny Kaye

text: Following the success of the film "Hans Christian Andersen" (1952), two of its songs written by Frank Loesser and sung by Kaye, "Thumbelina" and "Wonderful Copenhagen", reached the charts: the former title became a minor US hit, and the latter reached No. 5 on the UK Singles Chart. In 1953, Decca released "Danny at the Palace", a live recording made at the New York Palace Theater, followed by "Knock On Wood" (Decca, 1954) a set of songs from the movie of the same name sung by Kaye, accompanied by Victor Young and His Singing Strings.


title: Danny Kaye

text: In 1956, Kaye signed a three-year recording contract with Capitol Records, which released his single "Love Me Do" in December of that year. The B-side, "Ciu Ciu Bella", with lyrics written by Sylvia Fine, was inspired by an episode in Rome when Kaye, on a mission for UNICEF, befriended a 7-year-old polio victim in a children's hospital, who sang this song for him in Italian.


title: Danny Kaye

text: In 1958, Saul Chaplin and Johnny Mercer wrote songs for "Merry Andrew", a film starring Kaye as a British teacher attracted to the circus. The score added up to six numbers, all sung by Kaye; conductor Billy May's 1950 composition "Bozo's Circus Band" (renamed "Music of the Big Top Circus Band") was deposited on the second side of the "Merry Andrew" soundtrack, released in 1958. A year later, another soundtrack came out, for "The Five Pennies" (in which Kaye starred as 1920s cornet player Red Nichols), featuring Louis Armstrong.


title: Danny Kaye

text: In the 1960s and 1970s, Kaye regularly conducted world-famous orchestras, although he had to learn the scores by ear. Kaye's style, even if accompanied by unpredictable antics (he once traded the baton for a fly swatter to conduct "The Flight of the Bumblebee") was praised by the likes of Zubin Mehta, who once stated that Kaye "has a very efficient conducting style". His ability with an orchestra was mentioned by Dimitri Mitropoulos, then conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. After Kaye's appearance Mitropoulos remarked, "Here is a man who is not musically trained, who cannot even read music and he gets more out of my orchestra than I have." Kaye was invited to conduct symphonies as charity fundraisers and was the conductor of the all-city marching band at the season opener of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1984. Over his career, he raised over US$5 million in support of musician pension funds.


title: Danny Kaye

text: In his later years, Kaye entertained at home as chef. He specialized in Chinese and Italian cooking. He had a custom-made Chinese restaurant installed at the rear of his house by its alley, then had a kitchen and dining area built around it. The stove that Kaye used for his Chinese dishes was fitted with metal rings for the burners to allow the heat to be highly concentrated, and a trough with circulating ice water cooled the area to keep the intense heat tolerable for those who were cooking. He learned "at Johnny Kan's restaurant in San Francisco and with Cecilia Chang at her Mandarin restaurants in San Francisco and Los Angeles". He taught Chinese cooking classes at a San Francisco Chinese restaurant in the 1970s. The theatre and demonstration kitchen under the library at the Hyde Park, New York campus of the Culinary Institute of America is named for him.


title: Danny Kaye

text: Kaye referred to his kitchen as "Ying's Thing". While filming "The Madwoman of Chaillot" in France, he phoned home to ask his family if they would like to eat at Ying's Thing that evening; Kaye flew home for dinner. Not all of his efforts in the kitchen went well. After flying to San Francisco for a recipe for sourdough bread, he came home and spent hours preparing loaves. When his daughter asked about the bread, Kaye hit the bread on the kitchen table; his bread was hard enough to chip it. Kaye approached kitchen work with enthusiasm, making sausages and other foods needed for his cuisine. Though it is often claimed that he was a Meilleur Ouvrier de France (MOF), this is not true, as the MOF is restricted to French professionals. Rather, he had cooked for several famous French chefs at his house (all of them MOFs), and they signed an "honorary" Meilleur Ouvrier de France diploma for him.


title: Danny Kaye

text: Kaye became an aviation enthusiast and pilot. His interest was sparked by his longtime friend, choreographer Michael Kidd, who at the time had recently earned his Private Pilot's License (PPL). Kaye was an enthusiastic and accomplished golfer, but reduced golf activities in favor of flying and started training for a PPL in 1959.


title: Danny Kaye

text: Kaye received a type rating in a Learjet, and he was named vice president of the Learjet company by Bill Lear as an honorary title (he had no line responsibility at the company). He supported many flying projects. In 1968, he was honorary chairman of the Las Vegas International Exposition of Flight, a show that utilized many facets of the city's entertainment industry while presenting an air show. The operational show chairman was well-known aviation figure Lynn Garrison. Kaye flew a Learjet to 65 cities in five days on a mission to help UNICEF.


title: Danny Kaye

text: In 1958, Kaye and partner Lester Smith formed Kaye–Smith Enterprises. The company owned a chain of radio stations, mostly in the Pacific Northwest. Other Kaye–Smith divisions included a concert promotion company, a video production company, and a recording studio. Kaye sold his share of the company to the Smith family in 1985.


title: Danny Kaye

text: A lifelong Dodgers fan, Kaye recorded a song called "The D-O-D-G-E-R-S Song (Oh really? No, O'Malley!)", describing a fictitious encounter with the San Francisco Giants, a hit during the real-life pennant chase of 1962. That song is included on "Baseball's Greatest Hits" compact discs. A good friend of Leo Durocher, he often traveled with the team. He also possessed an encyclopaedic knowledge of the game and was an accomplished second baseman.


title: Danny Kaye

text: Kaye and his business partner Lester Smith also led an investment group which was awarded the American League's thirteenth franchise, which became the Seattle Mariners for US$6.2 million on February 7, 1976. The ownership percentages of Kaye, Smith and two other remaining original investors were reduced to 5 percent each when George Argyros purchased 80 percent of the Mariners for $10.4 million on January 30, 1981. Kaye sold all of his business interests to Smith's family in 1985.


title: Danny Kaye

text: Kaye was an honorary member of the American College of Surgeons and the American Academy of Pediatrics.


title: Danny Kaye

text: Working alongside UNICEF's Halloween fundraiser founder, Ward Simon Kimball Jr., the actor educated the public on impoverished children in deplorable living conditions overseas and assisted in the distribution of donated goods and funds. His involvement with UNICEF came about in an unusual way. Kaye was flying home from London in 1949 when one of the plane's four engines lost its propeller and caught fire. The problem was initially thought serious enough that it might make an ocean landing; life jackets and life rafts were made ready. The plane was able to head back over 500 miles (804.67 km) to land at Shannon Airport, Ireland. On the way back to Shannon, the head of the Children's Fund, Maurice Pate, had the seat next to Danny Kaye and spoke at length about the need for recognition for the fund. Their discussion continued on the flight from Shannon to New York; it was the beginning of the actor's long association with UNICEF.


title: Danny Kaye

text: "For all of his success as a performer (...) his greatest legacy remains his tireless humanitarian work—so close were his ties to the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) that when the organization received the Nobel Peace Prize, Kaye was tapped to accept it", according to music critic Jason Ankeny.


title: Danny Kaye

text: Kaye and Sylvia Fine grew up in Brooklyn, living a few blocks apart, but they did not meet until they were working on an off-Broadway show in 1939. Sylvia was an audition pianist.


title: Danny Kaye

text: Sylvia discovered that Danny had worked for her father Samuel Fine, a dentist. Kaye, working in Florida, proposed on the telephone; the couple were married in Fort Lauderdale on January 3, 1940. The couple were married for life, except for a separation in 1947 and 1948, when Kaye was involved with Eve Arden.


title: Danny Kaye

text: The couple's only child, daughter Dena, was born on December 17, 1946. When she was very young, Dena did not like seeing her father perform because she did not understand that people were supposed to laugh at what he did. Kaye said in a 1954 interview, "Whatever she wants to be she will be without interference from her mother nor from me." Dena grew up to become a journalist.


title: Danny Kaye

text: Donald Spoto, the author of "Laurence Olivier" (HarperCollins), made an unsubstantiated claim that Kaye had a 10-year secret affair with Laurence Olivier. Despite media rumor since that book's publication, no evidence has been published. The English journalist Terry Coleman, who spent four years studying Olivier's archive of letters and memorabilia, could not find evidence of such an affair between Kaye and Olivier. Coleman observed, "I did check it and talked to a number of people. In this mountain of material in the archives I could not find a hint of an affair with Danny Kaye."


title: Danny Kaye

text: On 18 January 2013, during a 24-hour salute to Kaye on Turner Classic Movies in celebration of what TCM thought was his 100th birthday, Kaye's daughter Dena revealed to TCM host Ben Mankiewicz that Kaye's stated birth year of 1913 was incorrect, and that he was actually born in 1911.


title: Danny Kaye

text: A Democrat, he supported Adlai Stevenson's campaign during the 1952 presidential election. Kaye was the godfather of actress Mary Louise Weller.


title: Danny Kaye

text: Kaye died of heart failure on March 3, 1987, aged 76, brought on by internal bleeding and complications of hepatitis C. Kaye had quadruple bypass heart surgery in February 1983 and he contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion.


title: Danny Kaye

text: Kaye was cremated and his ashes were interred in the foundation of a bench in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. His grave is adorned with a bench that contains friezes of a baseball and bat, an aircraft, a piano, a flower pot, musical notes, and a chef's toque. His name and birth and death dates are inscribed on the toque. The United Nations held a memorial tribute to him at their New York headquarters on the evening of October 21, 1987.


title: Danny Kaye

text: The Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College in New York was opened in 1988, with a $1 million gift from Sylvia Kaye.


title: Danny Kaye

text: David Koenig reflects, "His legacy has dimmed with the passage of time. His greatest works (...) endure today only as memories in the minds of aging members of his audiences (...) much of his TV work has not aged particularly well. Whimsy was of another time." However, Koenig sees Kaye's film work in a different light, "History has smiled on individual pictures — in particular the holiday staple of "White Christmas" and "The Court Jester"... the medieval romp has steadily gained a reputation as one of the greatest comedies of all time."


title: Steel Magnolias

text: Steel Magnolias is a 1989 American comedy-drama film directed by Herbert Ross and starring Academy Award winner Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah, Olympia Dukakis and Julia Roberts. The picture is a film adaptation of Robert Harling's 1987 play of the same name about the bond a group of women share in a small-town Southern community, and how they cope with the death of one of their own. The supporting cast features Tom Skerritt, Dylan McDermott, Sam Shepard and Kevin J. O'Connor.


title: Steel Magnolias

text: Robert Harling based the story in part on his sister, Susan Harling Robinson. She died in 1985 of complications from Type 1 diabetes. In the film, Julia Roberts plays Shelby, the character based on Susan.


title: Steel Magnolias

text: Annelle Dupuy, a shy beauty school graduate, moves to the northwestern Louisiana town of Chinquapin Parish, where Truvy Jones hires her to work in her home-based beauty salon.


title: Steel Magnolias

text: Meanwhile, M'Lynn Eatenton and her daughter, Shelby, busily prepare for Shelby's wedding that is being held later that day. Along with Clairee Belcher—the former mayor's cheerful widow—they arrive at Truvy's to have their hair done. While there, Shelby, who has Type 1 diabetes, suffers a hypoglycemic attack, but recovers quickly with the women's help. M'Lynn reveals that due to Shelby's medical condition, her doctor advises against her having children. Shelby considered ending her engagement to her fiancé, Jackson, so he would not be deprived of children.


title: Steel Magnolias

text: Grouchy and sarcastic Louisa "Ouiser" Boudreaux arrives at the salon and immediately begins interrogating Annelle about her background. Annelle tearfully reveals that her no-good husband, Bunkie, is evading the police and has taken all their money, her clothes and jewelry, and the car. Annelle further admits she is unsure her marriage is legal. Shelby, sympathetic, invites Annelle to the wedding reception where she meets bartender Sammy DeSoto. Soon after, Annelle, following a short-lived wild streak, becomes deeply religious, annoying everyone, including Sammy.


title: Steel Magnolias

text: During the Christmas holidays, Shelby announces she is pregnant. Everyone is thrilled except M’Lynn, knowing the risks. Truvy encourages M'Lynn to instead focus on the joy a new baby brings.


title: Steel Magnolias

text: Shelby has a baby boy, Jackson Jr., but soon develops kidney failure requiring regular dialysis. Around Jackson Jr.'s first birthday, Shelby undergoes a successful transplant with M'Lynn's donated kidney. Shelby recovers, but four months later, Jackson arrives home to find her unconscious. Shelby is comatose, having contracted an infection in her central nervous system due to the suppressive therapy that keeps her body from rejecting the kidney. After doctors determine Shelby's condition is irreversible, the family jointly decide to remove her from life support.


title: Steel Magnolias

text: After the funeral, M'Lynn breaks down, but the other women comfort her. M'Lynn gradually accepts her daughter's decision to have risked her life in return for a few special years of motherhood and decides to focus her energy on helping Jackson raising her grandson. Annelle, now married to Sammy and pregnant, tells M'Lynn she wants to name her own baby after Shelby, as she was the reason she and Sammy met. M'Lynn approves, stating, "Life goes on."


title: Steel Magnolias

text: At the town Easter egg hunt, Annelle goes into labor and is rushed to the hospital and another life begins.


title: Steel Magnolias

text: The original play dramatized experiences of the family and friends of the play's author following the 1985 death of his sister from diabetic complications after the birth of his namesake nephew and the failure of a family member's donated kidney. A writer friend continuously encouraged him to write it down in order to come to terms with the experience. He did but originally as a short story for his nephew then later to get an understanding of the deceased mother. It evolved in ten days into the play.


title: Steel Magnolias

text: Released by TriStar Pictures in the United States on November 15, 1989, it grossed more than $83.7 million at the box office. Harling's first produced screenplay, he adapted the original film script which was then heavily rewritten beyond the on-stage one-set scenario (which had taken place entirely in Truvy's beauty salon) of the stage production: the scenes increased and the sequence was more tightly linked with major holidays than the play; the increased characters beyond the original, all-female play cast caused dialogue changes between on-screen characters (among them, Harling plays the preacher and Truvy has one son instead of two). Natchitoches, Louisiana served as both the 1989 film location and scenario location with historian Robert DeBlieux, a former Natchitoches mayor, as the local advisor. The house where much of the film was shot is now a six-suite B&B, available for rent. The church used for a wedding scene is St Augustine Catholic Church in Natchez.


title: Steel Magnolias

text: It received generally positive reviews from critics and has a score of 68% on Rotten Tomatoes from 34 reviews. The site's consensus states: ""Steel Magnolias" has jokes and characters to spare, which makes it more dangerous (and effective) when it goes for the full melodrama by the end". An example of a less enthusiastic critic was Hal Hinson of "The Washington Post", who said that it felt "more Hollywood than the South." More enthusiastic was Roger Ebert, who said that the film was "willing to sacrifice its over-all impact for individual moments of humor, and while that leaves us without much to take home, you've got to hand it to them: The moments work". The film received a score of 56 based 13 critics on Metacritic with "mixed or average reviews".


title: Steel Magnolias

text: The movie received a limited release on November 15, 1989: it entered the U.S. box office at No. 4 with an opening weekend gross of $5,425,440; by the time of wider release two days later it grossed $15,643,935; stayed in the top 10 for 16 weeks, grossed $83,759,091 domestically with a further $12,145,000 with foreign markets, giving a worldwide gross of $95,904,091.


title: Steel Magnolias

text: The film was released on VHS on June 19, 1990, and on DVD July 25, 2000, allowing the film to gross a further $40 million. The movie's overall gross was $135,904,091. The film was released on Blu-ray through the boutique label Twilight Time, on September 11, 2012–it has since gone out of print. A 30th anniversary Blu-ray was released on May 28, 2019.


title: Steel Magnolias

text: Lifetime Television Network presented a remake directed by Kenny Leon, who had directed an ABC remake of "A Raisin in the Sun" (2008), set in Louisiana with black actors in the lead roles: Queen Latifah (M'Lynn), Jill Scott (Truvy), Alfre Woodard (Ouiser), Phylicia Rashād (Clairee), Adepero Oduye (Annelle) and Condola Rashād (Shelby). A review in "The New York Times" was mixed.


title: Steel Magnolias

text: CBS broadcast on August 17, 1990, a half-hour television pilot sitcom. The pilot, set after the events of the movie, featured the same characters, except for Shelby.


title: Steel Magnolias

text: The cast included Cindy Williams as M'Lynn, Sally Kirkland as Truvy, Elaine Stritch as Ouiser, Polly Bergen as Clairee and Sheila McCarthy as Annelle. The show was not picked up to series.


title: Stan (song)

text: "Stan" is a song by American rapper Eminem featuring vocals sampled from the opening lines of British singer Dido's song "Thank You". It was released on November 20, 2000, as the third single from Eminem's third album, "The Marshall Mathers LP" (2000). "Stan" peaked at number 51 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. Outside of the United States, "Stan" topped the charts in 12 countries, including Australia, Germany, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.


title: Stan (song)

text: The 45 King-produced track also uses a slightly modified break from "Thank You" as its base sample; both songs were released as singles in late 2000. "Stan" has been called one of Eminem's best songs and is considered one of his signature songs. In 2003, "Rolling Stone" magazine ranked "Stan" 296th on its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, upping their ranking to 223rd in a 2021 updated list. The song was also listed 15th on VH1s list of the greatest hip-hop songs of all time and named in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.


title: Stan (song)

text: The song was nominated for multiple awards, including Best Song at the MTV Europe Music Awards, Video of the Year, Best Rap Video, Best Direction, and Best Cinematography at the MTV Video Music Awards. It won Best International Artist Video at the MuchMusic Video Awards. In April 2011, "Complex" magazine put together a list of the 100 greatest Eminem songs and ranked "Stan" second. The eponymous character's name gave rise to a slang term that refers to overzealous, maniacal, overly obsessed, entitled fans of a celebrity or personality; the term has since been included in the "Oxford English Dictionary".


title: Stan (song)

text: The song tells the story of a person named Stanley "Stan" Mitchell (voiced by Eminem) who claims to be Eminem's biggest fan. It has been suggested the name "Stan" is a combination of the words "stalker" and "fan", though it is unknown if the name was chosen with that intention. He writes Eminem several letters; over two verses, he becomes more obsessive, and when there is no reply he becomes angrier. He finally creates a voice recording of himself while driving his car on the highway, having consumed large quantities of depressants and alcohol; this verse includes a call-back to Eminem's "My Name Is" with the lyrics "I drank a fifth of vodka, you dare me to drive?" He reveals that his pregnant girlfriend is tied up in the trunk as he approaches a bridge. Right before he drives off the bridge, he quickly realizes that he has no way to send the tape to Eminem.


title: Stan (song)

text: The fourth verse features Eminem as himself, writing back to Stan and attempting to reason with him. Eminem explains to Stan that his lyrics are not to be taken literally. He warns Stan that he should receive help, telling him about a story he heard on the news about a man who had driven his car off a bridge in a drunken stupor, killing himself and his pregnant girlfriend. Eminem then comes to the realization that this man was actually Stan.


title: Stan (song)

text: Directed by Dr. Dre and Philip Atwell, the video is a literal interpretation of the story. The video features Devon Sawa as Stan and Dido as his pregnant girlfriend. A prologue involves Stan dyeing his hair blonde and reacting angrily to being called "Stanley" by his girlfriend. Later, he sits in a basement full of Eminem's posters, writing letters that express his devotion as "your (Eminem's) biggest fan". He is aware of every development in Eminem's personal life.


title: Stan (song)

text: Stan gets mad at his girlfriend (Dido) when she interrupts him watching Eminem's “The Way I Am” video.


title: Stan (song)

text: Stan wants Eminem to contact him through a personal letter or a phone call; but, due to unfortunate circumstances, the letters fail to reach Eminem in a timely manner. Believing he has been ignored, Stan uses a tape recorder to record himself driving along a rain-soaked highway while his girlfriend is locked up in the trunk; which he does with the intention of driving off a bridge. In the process, Stan references both "My Name Is" ("I drank a fifth of vodka, dare me to drive?") and an urban legend about Phil Collins's "In the Air Tonight" before realizing that there is no way of transmitting this final tape to Eminem. The car then breaks through the bridge barrier, sealing both occupants' fates.


title: Stan (song)

text: Stan's mother and his little brother Matthew visit his grave. When Matthew opens his hoodie, he has dyed his hair blonde like Stan. Eminem finally gets around to responding to Stan. He apologizes for being late, thanks him for being a fan, and expresses interest in Stan's personal life. Eminem worries about Stan's mental state and says he does not want Stan to end up like a story he had seen on the news recently—a man who had driven drunk off a bridge with his girlfriend in the trunk, about whom he then realizes, "It was you. Damn." Unbeknownst to Eminem, flashes of lightning shine on his window, revealing the ghost of Stan silently glaring. The video ends with Matthew staring at Stan's grave.


title: Stan (song)

text: In the MTV "clean" version, the song and video were censored. Significant portions from the first two verses and most of the third verse were removed. MTV also cut out all traces of Stan's girlfriend bound in the trunk of the car and removed one scene showing him guzzling vodka while driving. In the MTV full version, which is 8:15 long, verse 3 censors Stan mentioning his girlfriend in the trunk (so "Shut up bitch" and "screaming in the trunk" is censored), and about him not slitting her throat, but tied her up, and "if she suffocates, she'll suffer more, then she'll die too", which "slit", "tied her up", "suffocates", and "die" is censored.


title: Stan (song)

text: Dido has stated that she was gagged in the third verse of the video, however this was censored so widely that versions with her gagged are rare. In the uncensored version, Stan is shown drinking at the wheel of the car before showing Dido struggling in the trunk of the car. She manages to remove the duct tape from her mouth and screams before struggling for breath. Most versions were censored so that there is only a brief clip of Dido in the trunk of the car towards the end of the verse. It also censors when Stan says he "drank a fifth of vodka", which censors "drank" and "vodka"; and censors when he says he's on "a thousand downers", which "downers" is censored; and also censors Stan drinking while driving. At the end of the third verse, "Well, gotta go, I'm almost at the bridge now" is changed to "Well, gotta go, I'm almost at the end of the bridge now". In the fourth verse, the line "[And what's this] shit about us meant to be together" is completely censored. All references to the girlfriend in the trunk are censored, including the screaming in the background, and the line: "And had his girlfriend in his trunk, and she was pregnant with his kid."


title: Stan (song)

text: In the MTV short version, which was used for radio airplay due to time constraints, the second verse lines that are missing are from "I ain't that mad though, I just don't like bein' lied to" to "I even got a tattoo of your name across the chest"; the video cuts showing Stan meeting Eminem, talking about how his father cheated and beat his mother and showed him getting a "Slim Shady" tattoo on his chest. The missing lyrics from the third verse are of Stan talking about drinking while driving and referencing "In the Air Tonight", (Eminem quotes the title as "In the Air of the Night) which in the video, it skips from showing Stan near-missing a car, and swerving to avoid crashing into it. The lines that are missing are from "Hey Slim, I drank a fifth of vodka, you dare to me to drive?" to "I hope you know I ripped all of your pictures off the wall". It also removes the chorus after the third verse and goes straight to the fourth verse; the video then cuts to Eminem at last receiving the letter from Stan, and the car sinking more into the water.


title: Stan (song)

text: In Fuse's original state as a rock and alternative station, the same versions of the video were shown as on MTV. However, in later Fuse airings, more lines and words are silenced than on the clean version of the LP; half of one of the beginning verses are cut out, and then the song fades out about halfway through the second verse, after playing for approximately two minutes. "Stan" was also released on track 17 of ""; on the clean and explicit versions, the live track censored only the profanity, unlike the clean version of the studio track.


title: Stan (song)

text: "Stan" was met with critical acclaim, with praise directed to the song's epistolary narrative structure, emotional range and lyrical depth. Stephen Thomas Erlewine highlighted the song. "Entertainment Weekly" praised the song, too: "Eminem proves himself a peerless rap poet with a profound understanding of the power of language. "Stan," an epistolary exchange between the artist and a dangerously obsessive fan, may be the most moving song about star worship ever recorded" and added that "Stan" blazes significant new ground for rap. The "Los Angeles Times" was also positive: Stan', the album's most haunting track, is superb storytelling with a point. It has the affecting tone of such rap high points as Ice Cube's 'It Was a Good Day' and Tupac's 'Dear Mama'."


title: Stan (song)

text: "NME" magazine praised the song: Stan' is a wonderful short story, an astute study in extreme fandom." Sputnik Music described that "Stan's sampling of Dido and use of rain and writing sound effects" make the album versatile. The same critic listed the song in the Recommended Downloads list and reviewed it:If you haven't heard this, you probably make a career out of living under rocks. It tells the story of an obsessive fan who kills themselves because their idol (Eminem) never writes back, and introduces one of the album's key themes – the scary power of fame. Ironic, then, that this album made him the biggest cultural figurehead on the planet. It starts with a sample of Dido's 'Thank You' under a sample of rain. This sample goes on to form the song's hook, relating the level of Stan's obsession and almost making him a sympathetic character (Your picture on my wall/It reminds me that it's not so bad...). Offsetting this is Eminem's raps under the persona of Stan, which reveal him as a reprehensible character; mentally unstable, self-mutilating, sexually confused, volatile, and abusive to his pregnant girlfriend (whose life he takes too, when he takes his own). Eminem's final verse is him attempting to write back, asking him not to be like this guy he saw on the news...Overplayed? Yes. But even so, of all of Eminem's singles, this one demonstrates his power as a rapper and his skill as a poet best. IGN praised the song as "easily the most scathingly introspective rumination on fan adoration, idol assimilation, and borderline stalker etiquette. Teamed to Dido's lulling 'Thank You' with its almost somnambulistically hypnotic pop sultriness provides a jolting contrast to the twisted storyline of a musical obsession gone awry. It also paints a picture of what it's like to be knee deep in the push-and-pull world of a superstar. The song's poignancy never fades, even almost five years later it's still potent." "Slant Magazine" was mixed: Stan' is an interesting look into the mind of a fanatic (albeit through the eyes of an equally disturbed individual), but it's structured entirely around someone else's work (Dido's 'Thank You')."


title: Stan (song)

text: "Stan" is one of Eminem's most acclaimed songs and has been called a "cultural milestone", referred to as "Eminem's best song" by About.com. Analyzing "Stan" in "The Guardian", writer and literary critic Giles Foden compared Eminem to Robert Browning.


title: Stan (song)

text: At the 2001 Grammy Awards, when he was facing criticism from GLAAD over his lyrics, Eminem responded by performing "Stan" with singer Elton John singing Dido's lines. Many of the profanities were substituted, for example, "You're like his favorite idol" in place of "You're like his fucking idol", and "stuff" for "shit". Recordings of this performance were available for download on Eminem's official website Eminem.com and, later, on his 2005 greatest hits release "".


title: Stan (song)

text: Rapper Canibus released a response track to "Stan" titled "U Didn't Care" in which Canibus, imitating Stan, accused Eminem of not caring about him.


title: Stan (song)

text: Christian rap artist KJ-52 recorded two songs: "Dear Slim" and "Dear Slim, Part II", which attempted to contact Eminem in an allusion to "Stan". Eminem later referenced a fan who had written a letter saying he was praying for him in "Careful What You Wish For". "My Life" by The Game samples "Stan". Conservative rapper Tom MacDonald recorded a response track to Stan in 2021. After Eminem released a series of NFTs as part of his "Shady Con" event with Nifty Gateway, MacDonald purchased one—an Eminem-produced instrumental called "Stan's Revenge"—for $100,000. MacDonald used the instrumental to create his song "Dear Slim", released in May 2021. The song's accompanying music video paid homage to the music video for "Stan".


title: Stan (song)

text: "Stan" has entered the lexicon as a term for an overly-obsessed fan of someone or something and is used colloquially to express fandom of all kinds. The term is especially popular in the rap community; in "Ether", a diss track against rapper Jay-Z, Nas notably called Jay a "stan" of both himself and The Notorious B.I.G. The term was added to the "Oxford English Dictionary" in 2017.


title: Stan (song)

text: "Stan" has been listed by many as one of the greatest hip hop songs of all time. It was ranked number three on a list of the greatest rap songs in history by "Q" magazine and came tenth in a similar survey conducted by Top40-Charts.com. "Rolling Stone" magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" ranked it number 290, one of Eminem's two songs on the list along with "Lose Yourself"; in the updated 2010 list, it was ranked at number 296. It ranked number 45 on About.com's "Top 100 Rap Songs".


title: Stan (song)

text: The song ranked number 15 on VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop", and number two on their "Countdown Millennium Songs". It was also named the "46th Best Song of the Decade" by "Complex" magazine, and the 10th Best Song of the decade by "Rolling Stone". The song was ranked at number 58 in "Rolling Stone"s list of "100 Greatest Hip-Hop songs of all time". In 2017, "Rolling Stone" ranked the song number two on their list of the 50 greatest Eminem songs, and in 2020, "The Guardian" ranked the song number one on their list of the 30 greatest Eminem songs.


title: Stan (song)

text: "Stan" has influenced many other hip-hop songs, including Tyler, the Creator's 2013 song "Colossus", off of "Wolf". This track dwells on similar themes as "Stan", such as growing up without a father, feeling like an outsider, and deep emotional attachment to a rapper.


title: Stan (song)

text: Eminem has referenced "Stan" in some of his later songs, including "River", "Walk on Water", "The Ringer", the diss track "Killshot", and his verse on "Calm Down" by Busta Rhymes.


title: Stan (song)

text: Eminem's song "Bad Guy", the opening track on The Marshall Mathers LP 2, is a sequel to Stan. The song is Matthew tracking down Eminem in an attempt to kill him, which he succeeds in doing so. After he dies in the song, Eminem is sent to hell in the song as a punishment for Stan's death.


title: Stan (song)

text: In 2020, "Saturday Night Live" featured a Christmas parody of "Stan" called "Stu", featuring Pete Davidson as Stu writing to Santa and becoming increasingly angry when he does not answer his requests for a PlayStation 5, with a cameo appearance from Eminem himself who does receive the system for Christmas.


title: Stan (song)

text: In 2022 at Eminem's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony performance, he performed the song with Ed Sheeran who played guitar during the song and sang Dido's lines.


title: Darius the Great

text: Darius I ( ; ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE. He ruled the empire at its territorial peak, when it included much of Western Asia, parts of the Balkans (Thrace–Macedonia and Paeonia) and the Caucasus, most of the Black Sea's coastal regions, Central Asia, the Indus Valley in the far east, and portions of North Africa and Northeast Africa including Egypt (), eastern Libya, and coastal Sudan.


title: Darius the Great

text: Darius ascended the throne by overthrowing the legitimate Achaemenid monarch Bardiya, whom he later fabricated to be an imposter named Gaumata. The new king met with rebellions throughout his kingdom and quelled them each time; a major event in Darius' life was his expedition to subjugate Greece and punish Athens and Eretria for their participation in the Ionian Revolt. Although his campaign ultimately resulted in failure at the Battle of Marathon, he succeeded in the re-subjugation of Thrace and expanded the Achaemenid Empire through his conquests of Macedon, the Cyclades and the island of Naxos as well as the sacked Greek city of Eretria.


title: Darius the Great

text: Darius organized the empire by dividing it into administrative provinces that were governed by satraps. He organized Achaemenid coinage as a new uniform monetary system, and made Aramaic a co-official language of the empire alongside Persian. He also put the empire in better standing by building roads and introducing standard weighing and measuring systems. Through these changes, the Achaemenid Empire became centralized and unified. Darius worked on other construction projects throughout the empire, primarily focusing on Susa, Pasargadae, Persepolis, Babylon and Egypt. He had the cliff-face Behistun Inscription carved at Mount Behistun to record his conquests, which would later become an important testimony of the Old Persian language.


title: Darius the Great

text: and are the Latin forms of the Greek (), itself from Old Persian (, ), which is a shortened form of "Dārayavaʰuš" (, ). The longer form is also seen to have been reflected in the Elamite , Babylonian , Aramaic (), and possibly the longer Greek form (). The name is a nominative form meaning "he who holds firm the good(ness)", which can be seen by the first part , meaning "holder", and the adverb , meaning "goodness".


title: Darius the Great

text: At some time between his coronation and his death, Darius left a tri-lingual monumental relief on Mount Behistun, which was written in Elamite, Old Persian and Babylonian. The inscription begins with a brief autobiography including his ancestry and lineage. To aid the presentation of his ancestry, Darius wrote down the sequence of events that occurred after the death of Cyrus the Great. Darius mentions several times that he is the rightful king by the grace of the supreme deity Ahura Mazda. In addition, further texts and monuments from Persepolis have been found, as well as a clay tablet containing an Old Persian cuneiform of Darius from Gherla, Romania (Harmatta) and a letter from Darius to Gadates, preserved in a Greek text of the Roman period. In the foundation tablets of Apadana Palace, Darius described in Old Persian cuneiform the extent of his Empire in broad geographical terms:


title: Darius the Great

text: Herodotus, a Greek historian and author of "The Histories", provided an account of many Persian kings and the Greco-Persian Wars. He wrote extensively on Darius, spanning half of Book 3 along with Books 4, 5 and 6. It begins with the removal of the alleged usurper Gaumata and continues to the end of Darius's reign.


title: Darius the Great

text: Darius was the eldest of five sons to Hystaspes. The identity of his mother is uncertain. According to the modern historian Alireza Shapour Shahbazi (1994), Darius' mother was a certain Rhodogune. However, according to Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (2013), recently uncovered texts in Persepolis indicate that his mother was Irdabama, an affluent landowner descended from a family of local Elamite rulers. Richard Stoneman likewise refers Irdabama to as the mother of Darius. The Behistun Inscription of Darius states that his father was satrap of Bactria in 522 BCE. According to Herodotus (III.139), Darius, prior to seizing power and "of no consequence at the time", had served as a spearman ("doryphoros") in the Egyptian campaign (528–525 BCE) of Cambyses II, then the Persian Great King; this is often interpreted to mean he was the king's personal spear-carrier, an important role. Hystaspes was an officer in Cyrus' army and a noble of his court.


title: Darius the Great

text: Before Cyrus and his army crossed the river Araxes to battle with the Armenians, he installed his son Cambyses II as king in case he should not return from battle. However, once Cyrus had crossed the Aras River, he had a vision in which Darius had wings atop his shoulders and stood upon the confines of Europe and Asia (the known world). When Cyrus awoke from the dream, he inferred it as a great danger to the future security of the empire, as it meant that Darius would one day rule the whole world. However, his son Cambyses was the heir to the throne, not Darius, causing Cyrus to wonder if Darius was forming treasonable and ambitious designs. This led Cyrus to order Hystaspes to go back to Persis and watch over his son strictly, until Cyrus himself returned.


title: Darius the Great

text: There are different accounts of the rise of Darius to the throne from both Darius himself and Greek historians. The oldest records report a convoluted sequence of events in which Cambyses II lost his mind, murdered his brother Bardiya, and was killed by an infected leg wound. After this, Darius and a group of six nobles traveled to Sikayauvati to kill an usurper, Gaumata, who had taken the throne by pretending to be Bardiya during the true king's absence.


title: Darius the Great

text: Darius's account, written at the Behistun Inscription, states that Cambyses II killed his own brother Bardiya, but that this murder was not known among the Iranian people. A would-be usurper named Gaumata came and lied to the people, stating he was Bardiya. The Iranians had grown rebellious against Cambyses's rule and on 11 March 522 BCE a revolt against Cambyses broke out in his absence. On 1 July, the Iranian people chose to be under the leadership of Gaumata, as "Bardiya". No member of the Achaemenid family would rise against Gaumata for the safety of their own life. Darius, who had served Cambyses as his lance-bearer until the deposed ruler's death, prayed for aid and in September 522 BCE, along with Otanes, Intaphrenes, Gobryas, Hydarnes, Megabyzus and Aspathines, killed Gaumata in the fortress of Sikayauvati.


title: Darius the Great

text: Herodotus provides a dubious account of Darius's ascension: Several days after Gaumata had been assassinated, Darius and the other six nobles discussed the fate of the empire. At first, the seven discussed the form of government; a democratic republic ("Isonomia") was strongly pushed by Otanes, an oligarchy was pushed by Megabyzus, while Darius pushed for a monarchy. After stating that a republic would lead to corruption and internal fighting, while a monarchy would be led with a single-mindedness not possible in other governments, Darius was able to convince the other nobles.


title: Darius the Great

text: To decide who would become the monarch, six of them decided on a test, with Otanes abstaining, as he had no interest in being king. They were to gather outside the palace, mounted on their horses at sunrise, and the man whose horse neighed first in recognition of the rising sun would become king. According to Herodotus, Darius had a slave, Oebares, who rubbed his hand over the genitals of a mare that Darius's horse favored. When the six gathered, Oebares placed his hands beside the nostrils of Darius' horse, who became excited at the scent and neighed. This was followed by lightning and thunder, leading the others to dismount and kneel before Darius in recognition of his apparent divine providence. In this account, Darius himself claimed that he achieved the throne not through fraud, but cunning, even erecting a statue of himself mounted on his neighing horse with the inscription: "Darius, son of Hystaspes, obtained the sovereignty of Persia by the sagacity of his horse and the ingenious contrivance of Oebares, his groom."


title: Darius the Great

text: According to the accounts of Greek historians, Cambyses II had left Patizeithes in charge of the kingdom when he headed for Egypt. He later sent Prexaspes to murder Bardiya. After the killing, Patizeithes put his brother Gaumata, a Magian who resembled Bardiya, on the throne and declared him the Great King. Otanes discovered that Gaumata was an impostor, and along with six other Iranian nobles including Darius, created a plan to oust the pseudo-Bardiya. After killing the impostor along with his brother Patizeithes and other Magians, Darius was crowned king the following morning.


title: Darius the Great

text: The details regarding Darius' rise to power is generally acknowledged as forgery and was in reality used as a concealment of his overthrow and murder of Cyrus' rightful successor, Bardiya. To legitimize his rule, Darius had a common origin fabricated between himself and Cyrus by designating Achaemenes as the eponymous founder of their dynasty. In reality, Darius was not from the same house as Cyrus and his forebears, the rulers of Anshan.


title: Darius the Great

text: Following his coronation at Pasargadae, Darius moved to Ecbatana. He soon learned that support for Bardiya was strong, and revolts in Elam and Babylonia had broken out. Darius ended the Elamite revolt when the revolutionary leader Aschina was captured and executed in Susa. After three months the revolt in Babylonia had ended. While in Babylonia, Darius learned a revolution had broken out in Bactria, a satrapy which had always been in favour of Darius, and had initially volunteered an army of soldiers to quell revolts. Following this, revolts broke out in Persis, the homeland of the Persians and Darius and then in Elam and Babylonia, followed by in Media, Parthia, Assyria, and Egypt.


title: Darius the Great

text: By 522 BCE, there were revolts against Darius in most parts of the Achaemenid Empire leaving the empire in turmoil. Even though Darius did not seem to have the support of the populace, Darius had a loyal army, led by close confidants and nobles (including the six nobles who had helped him remove Gaumata). With their support, Darius was able to suppress and quell all revolts within a year. In Darius's words, he had killed a total of nine "lying kings" through the quelling of revolutions. Darius left a detailed account of these revolutions in the Behistun Inscription.


title: Darius the Great

text: One of the significant events of Darius's early reign was the slaying of Intaphernes, one of the seven noblemen who had deposed the previous ruler and installed Darius as the new monarch. The seven had made an agreement that they could all visit the new king whenever they pleased, except when he was with a woman. One evening, Intaphernes went to the palace to meet Darius, but was stopped by two officers who stated that Darius was with a woman. Becoming enraged and insulted, Intaphernes drew his sword and cut off the ears and noses of the two officers. While leaving the palace, he took the bridle from his horse, and tied the two officers together.


title: Darius the Great

text: The officers went to the king and showed him what Intaphernes had done to them. Darius began to fear for his own safety; he thought that all seven noblemen had banded together to rebel against him and that the attack against his officers was the first sign of revolt. He sent a messenger to each of the noblemen, asking them if they approved of Intaphernes's actions. They denied and disavowed any connection with Intaphernes's actions, stating that they stood by their decision to appoint Darius as King of Kings. Darius' choice to ask the noblemen indicates that he was not yet completely sure of his authority.


title: Darius the Great

text: Taking precautions against further resistance, Darius sent soldiers to seize Intaphernes, along with his son, family members, relatives and any friends who were capable of arming themselves. Darius believed that Intaphernes was planning a rebellion, but when he was brought to the court, there was no proof of any such plan. Nonetheless, Darius killed Intaphernes's entire family, excluding his wife's brother and son. She was asked to choose between her brother and son. She chose her brother to live. Her reasoning for doing so was that she could have another husband and another son, but she would always have but one brother. Darius was impressed by her response and spared both her brother's and her son's life.


title: Darius the Great

text: After securing his authority over the entire empire, Darius embarked on a campaign to Egypt where he defeated the armies of the Pharaoh and secured the lands that Cambyses had conquered while incorporating a large portion of Egypt into the Achaemenid Empire.


title: Darius the Great

text: Through another series of campaigns, Darius I would eventually reign over the territorial apex of the empire, when it stretched from parts of the Balkans (Thrace-Macedonia, Bulgaria-Paeonia) in the west, to the Indus Valley in the east.


title: Darius the Great

text: In 516 BCE, Darius embarked on a campaign to Central Asia, Aria and Bactria and then marched into Afghanistan to Taxila in modern-day Pakistan. Darius spent the winter of 516–515 BCE in Gandhara, preparing to conquer the Indus Valley. Darius conquered the lands surrounding the Indus River in 515 BCE. Darius I controlled the Indus Valley from Gandhara to modern Karachi and appointed the Greek Scylax of Caryanda to explore the Indian Ocean from the mouth of the Indus to Suez. Darius then marched through the Bolan Pass and returned through Arachosia and Drangiana back to Persia.


title: Darius the Great

text: After Bardiya was murdered, widespread revolts occurred throughout the empire, especially on the eastern side. Darius asserted his position as king by force, taking his armies throughout the empire, suppressing each revolt individually. The most notable of all these revolts was the Babylonian revolt which was led by Nebuchadnezzar III. This revolt occurred when Otanes withdrew much of the army from Babylon to aid Darius in suppressing other revolts. Darius felt that the Babylonian people had taken advantage of him and deceived him, which resulted in Darius gathering a large army and marching to Babylon. At Babylon, Darius was met with closed gates and a series of defences to keep him and his armies out.


title: Darius the Great

text: Darius encountered mockery and taunting from the rebels, including the famous saying "Oh yes, you will capture our city, when mules shall have foals." For a year and a half, Darius and his armies were unable to retake the city, though he attempted many tricks and strategies—even copying that which Cyrus the Great had employed when he captured Babylon. However, the situation changed in Darius's favour when, according to the story, a mule owned by Zopyrus, a high-ranking soldier, foaled. Following this, a plan was hatched for Zopyrus to pretend to be a deserter, enter the Babylonian camp, and gain the trust of the Babylonians. The plan was successful and Darius's army eventually surrounded the city and overcame the rebels.


title: Darius the Great

text: During this revolt, Scythian nomads took advantage of the disorder and chaos and invaded Persia. Darius first finished defeating the rebels in Elam, Assyria, and Babylon and then attacked the Scythian invaders. He pursued the invaders, who led him to a marsh; there he found no known enemies but an enigmatic Scythian tribe.


title: Darius the Great

text: The Scythians were a group of north Iranian nomadic tribes, speaking an Eastern Iranian language (Scythian languages) who had invaded Media, killed Cyrus in battle, revolted against Darius and threatened to disrupt trade between Central Asia and the shores of the Black Sea as they lived between the Danube River, River Don and the Black Sea.


title: Darius the Great

text: Darius crossed the Black Sea at the Bosphorus Straits using a bridge of boats. Darius conquered large portions of Eastern Europe, even crossing the Danube to wage war on the Scythians. Darius invaded European Scythia in 513 BC, where the Scythians evaded Darius's army, using feints and retreating eastwards while laying waste to the countryside, by blocking wells, intercepting convoys, destroying pastures and continuous skirmishes against Darius's army. Seeking to fight with the Scythians, Darius's army chased the Scythian army deep into Scythian lands, where there were no cities to conquer and no supplies to forage. In frustration Darius sent a letter to the Scythian ruler Idanthyrsus to fight or surrender. The ruler replied that he would not stand and fight with Darius until they found the graves of their fathers and tried to destroy them. Until then, they would continue their strategy as they had no cities or cultivated lands to lose.


title: Darius the Great

text: Despite the evading tactics of the Scythians, Darius' campaign was so far relatively successful. As presented by Herodotus, the tactics used by the Scythians resulted in the loss of their best lands and of damage to their loyal allies. This gave Darius the initiative. As he moved eastwards in the cultivated lands of the Scythians in Eastern Europe proper, he remained resupplied by his fleet and lived to an extent off the land. While moving eastwards in the European Scythian lands, he captured the large fortified city of the Budini, one of the allies of the Scythians, and burnt it.


title: Darius the Great

text: Darius eventually ordered a halt at the banks of Oarus, where he built "eight great forts, some distant from each other", no doubt as a frontier defence. In his "Histories", Herodotus states that the ruins of the forts were still standing in his day. After chasing the Scythians for a month, Darius's army was suffering losses due to fatigue, privation and sickness. Concerned about losing more of his troops, Darius halted the march at the banks of the Volga River and headed towards Thrace. He had conquered enough Scythian territory to force the Scythians to respect the Persian forces.


title: Darius the Great

text: Darius's European expedition was a major event in his reign, which began with the invasion of Thrace. Darius also conquered many cities of the northern Aegean, Paeonia, while Macedonia submitted voluntarily, after the demand of earth and water, becoming a vassal kingdom. He then left Megabyzus to conquer Thrace, returning to Sardis to spend the winter. The Greeks living in Asia Minor and some of the Greek islands had submitted to Persian rule already by 510 BCE. Nonetheless, there were certain Greeks who were pro-Persian, although these were largely based in Athens. To improve Greek-Persian relations, Darius opened his court and treasuries to those Greeks who wanted to serve him. These Greeks served as soldiers, artisans, statesmen and mariners for Darius. However, the increasing concerns amongst the Greeks over the strength of Darius's kingdom along with the constant interference by the Greeks in Ionia and Lydia were stepping stones towards the conflict that was yet to come between Persia and certain of the leading Greek city states.


title: Darius the Great

text: When Aristagoras organized the Ionian Revolt, Eretria and Athens supported him by sending ships and troops to Ionia and by burning Sardis. Persian military and naval operations to quell the revolt ended in the Persian reoccupation of Ionian and Greek islands, as well as the re-subjugation of Thrace and the conquering of Macedonia in 492 BCE under Mardonius. Macedon had been a vassal kingdom of the Persians since the late 6th century BC, but retained autonomy. Mardonius' 492 campaign made it a fully subordinate part of the Persian kingdom. These military actions, coming as a direct response to the revolt in Ionia, were the beginning of the First Persian invasion of (mainland) Greece. At the same time, anti-Persian parties gained more power in Athens, and pro-Persian aristocrats were exiled from Athens and Sparta.


title: Darius the Great

text: Darius responded by sending troops led by his son-in-law across the Hellespont. However, a violent storm and harassment by the Thracians forced the troops to return to Persia. Seeking revenge on Athens and Eretria, Darius assembled another army of 20,000 men under his Admiral, Datis, and his nephew Artaphernes, who met success when they captured Eretria and advanced to Marathon. In 490 BCE, at the Battle of Marathon, the Persian army was defeated by a heavily armed Athenian army, with 9,000 men who were supported by 600 Plataeans and 10,000 lightly armed soldiers led by Miltiades. The defeat at Marathon marked the end of the first Persian invasion of Greece. Darius began preparations for a second force which he would command, instead of his generals; however, before the preparations were complete, Darius died, thus leaving the task to his son Xerxes.


title: Darius the Great

text: Darius was the son of Hystaspes and the grandson of Arsames. Darius married Atossa, daughter of Cyrus, with whom he had four sons: Xerxes, Achaemenes, Masistes and Hystaspes. He also married Artystone, another daughter of Cyrus, with whom he had two sons, Arsames and Gobryas. Darius married Parmys, the daughter of Bardiya, with whom he had a son, Ariomardus. Furthermore, Darius married Phratagune, with whom he had two sons, Abrokomas and Hyperantes. He also married another woman of the nobility, Phaidyme, the daughter of Otanes. It is unknown if he had any children with her. Before these royal marriages, Darius had married an unknown daughter of his good friend and lance carrier Gobryas from an early marriage, with whom he had three sons, Artobazanes, Ariabignes and Arsamenes. Any daughters he had with her are not known. Although Artobazanes was Darius's first-born, Xerxes became heir and the next king through the influence of Atossa; she had great authority in the kingdom as Darius loved her the most of all his wives.


title: Darius the Great

text: After becoming aware of the Persian defeat at the Battle of Marathon, Darius began planning another expedition against the Greek-city states; this time, he, not Datis, would command the imperial armies. Darius had spent three years preparing men and ships for war when a revolt broke out in Egypt. This revolt in Egypt worsened his failing health and prevented the possibility of his leading another army. Soon afterwards, Darius died. In October 486 BCE, his body was embalmed and entombed in the rock-cut tomb at Naqsh-e Rostam, which he had been preparing. An inscription on his tomb introduces him as "Great King, King of Kings, King of countries containing all kinds of men, King in this great earth far and wide, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian, a Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan [Iranian], having Aryan lineage." A relief under his tomb portraying an equestrian combat was later carved during the reign of the Sasanian King of Kings, Bahram II ().


title: Darius the Great

text: Xerxes, the eldest son of Darius and Atossa, succeeded to the throne as Xerxes I; before his accession, he had contested the succession with his elder half-brother Artobarzanes, Darius's eldest son, who was born to his first wife before Darius rose to power. With Xerxes' accession, the empire was again ruled by a member of the house of Cyrus.


title: Darius the Great

text: Early in his reign, Darius wanted to reorganize the structure of the empire and reform the system of taxation he inherited from Cyrus and Cambyses. To do this, Darius created twenty provinces called satrapies (or "archi") which were each assigned to a satrap ("archon") and specified fixed tributes that the satrapies were required to pay. A complete list is preserved in the catalogue of Herodotus, beginning with Ionia and listing the other satrapies from west to east excluding Persis, which was the land of the Persians and the only province which was not a conquered land. Tributes were paid in both silver and gold talents. Tributes in silver from each satrap were measured with the Babylonian talent. Those paid in gold were measured with the Euboic talent. The total tribute from the satraps came to an amount less than 15,000 silver talents.


title: Darius the Great

text: The majority of the satraps were of Persian origin and were members of the royal house or the six great noble families. These satraps were personally picked by Darius to monitor these provinces. Each of the provinces was divided into sub-provinces, each having its own governor, who was chosen either by the royal court or by the satrap. To assess tributes, a commission evaluated the expenses and revenues of each satrap. To ensure that one person did not gain too much power, each satrap had a secretary, who observed the affairs of the state and communicated with Darius; a treasurer, who safeguarded provincial revenues; and a garrison commander, who was responsible for the troops. Additionally, royal inspectors, who were the "eyes and ears" of Darius, completed further checks on each satrap.


title: Darius the Great

text: The imperial administration was coordinated by the chancery with headquarters at Persepolis, Susa, and Babylon with Bactria, Ecbatana, Sardis, Dascylium and Memphis having branches. Darius kept Aramaic as the common language, which soon spread throughout the empire. However, Darius gathered a group of scholars to create a separate language system only used for Persis and the Persians, which was called Aryan script and was only used for official inscriptions. Before this, the accomplishments of the king were addressed in Persian solely through narration and hymns and through the "masters of memory". Indeed, oral history continued to play an important role throughout the history of Iran.


title: Darius the Great

text: Darius introduced a new universal currency, the daric, sometime before 500 BCE. Darius used the coinage system as a transnational currency to regulate trade and commerce throughout his empire. The Daric was also recognized beyond the borders of the empire, in places such as Celtic Central Europe and Eastern Europe. There were two types of darics, a gold daric and a silver daric. Only the king could mint gold darics. Important generals and satraps minted silver darics, the latter usually to recruit Greek mercenaries in Anatolia. The daric was a major boost to international trade. Trade goods such as textiles, carpets, tools and metal objects began to travel throughout Asia, Europe and Africa. To further improve trade, Darius built the Royal Road, a postal system and Phoenician-based commercial shipping.


title: Darius the Great

text: The daric also improved government revenues as the introduction of the daric made it easier to collect new taxes on land, livestock and marketplaces. This led to the registration of land which was measured and then taxed. The increased government revenues helped maintain and improve existing infrastructure and helped fund irrigation projects in dry lands. This new tax system also led to the formation of state banking and the creation of banking firms. One of the most famous banking firms was Murashu Sons, based in the Babylonian city of Nippur. These banking firms provided loans and credit to clients.


title: Darius the Great

text: In an effort to further improve trade, Darius built canals, underground waterways and a powerful navy. He further improved and expanded the network of roads and way stations throughout the empire, so that there was a system of travel authorization for the King, satraps and other high officials, which entitled the traveller to draw provisions at daily stopping places.


title: Darius the Great

text: While there is no general consensus in scholarship whether Darius and his predecessors had been influenced by Zoroastrianism, it is well established that Darius was a firm believer in Ahura Mazda, whom he saw as the supreme deity. However, Ahura Mazda was also worshipped by adherents of the (Indo-)Iranian religious tradition. As can be seen at the Behistun Inscription, Darius believed that Ahura Mazda had appointed him to rule the Achaemenid Empire.


title: Darius the Great

text: Darius had dualistic philosophical convictions and believed that each rebellion in his kingdom was the work of druj, the enemy of Asha. Darius believed that because he lived righteously by Asha, Ahura Mazda supported him. In many cuneiform inscriptions denoting his achievements, he presents himself as a devout believer, perhaps even convinced that he had a divine right to rule over the world.


title: Darius the Great

text: In the lands that were conquered by his empire, Darius followed the same Achaemenid tolerance that Cyrus had shown and later Achaemenid kings would show. He supported faiths and religions that were "alien" as long as the adherents were "submissive and peaceable", sometimes giving them grants from his treasury for their purposes. He had funded the restoration of the Israelite temple which had originally been decreed by Cyrus, was supportive towards Greek cults which can be seen in his letter to Gadatas, and supported Elamite priests. He had also observed Egyptian religious rites related to kingship and had built the temple for the Egyptian god, Amun.


title: Darius the Great

text: During Darius's Greek expedition, he had begun construction projects in Susa, Egypt and Persepolis. He had linked the Red Sea to the river Nile by building a canal (Darius Canal) which ran from modern Zaqāzīq to modern Suez. To open this canal, he travelled to Egypt in 497 BCE, where the inauguration was carried out with great fanfare and celebration. Darius also built a canal to connect the Red Sea and Mediterranean. On this visit to Egypt he erected monuments and executed Aryandes on the charge of treason. When Darius returned to Persis, he found that the codification of Egyptian law had been finished.


title: Darius the Great

text: Additionally, Darius sponsored large construction projects in Susa, Babylon, Egypt, and Persepolis. In Susa, Darius built a new palace complex in the north of the city. An inscription states that the palace was destroyed during the reign of Artaxerxes I, but was rebuilt. Today only glazed bricks of the palace remain, the majority of them in the Louvre. In Pasargadae Darius finished all incomplete construction projects from the reign of Cyrus the Great. A palace was also built during the reign of Darius, with an inscription in the name of Cyrus the Great. It was previously believed that Cyrus had constructed this building, however due to the cuneiform script being used, the palace is believed to have been constructed by Darius.


title: Darius the Great

text: In Egypt Darius built many temples and restored those that had previously been destroyed. Even though Darius was a believer of Ahura Mazda, he built temples dedicated to the Gods of the Ancient Egyptian religion. Several temples found were dedicated to Ptah and Nekhbet. Darius also created several roads and routes in Egypt. The monuments that Darius built were often inscribed in the official languages of the Persian Empire, Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian and Egyptian hieroglyphs. To construct these monuments Darius employed a large number of workers and artisans of diverse nationalities. Several of these workers were deportees who had been employed specifically for these projects. These deportees enhanced the empire's economy and improved inter-cultural relations. At the time of Darius's death construction projects were still under way. Xerxes completed these works and in some cases expanded his father's projects by erecting new buildings of his own.


title: Arabic numerals

text: Arabic numerals are the ten numerical digits: , , , , , , , , and . They are the most commonly used symbols to write decimal numbers. They are also used for writing numbers in other systems such as octal, and for writing identifiers such as computer symbols, trademarks, or license plates. The term often implies a decimal number, in particular when contrasted with Roman numerals.


title: Arabic numerals

text: They are also called Western Arabic numerals, Ghubār numerals, Hindu-Arabic numerals, Western digits, Latin digits, or European digits. The "Oxford English Dictionary" differentiates them with the fully capitalized "Arabic Numerals" to refer to the Eastern digits. The term numbers or numerals or digits often implies only these symbols, however this can only be inferred from context.


title: Arabic numerals

text: It was in the Algerian city of Béjaïa that the Italian scholar Fibonacci first encountered the numerals; his work was crucial in making them known throughout Europe. European trade, books, and colonialism helped popularize the adoption of Arabic numerals around the world. The numerals have found worldwide use significantly beyond the contemporary spread of the Latin alphabet, and have become common in the writing systems where other numeral systems existed previously, such as Chinese and Japanese numerals.


title: Arabic numerals

text: The reason the digits are more commonly known as "Arabic numerals" in Europe and the Americas is that they were introduced to Europe in the 10th century by Arabic speakers of Spain and North Africa, who were then using the digits from Libya to Morocco. In the eastern part of Arabic Peninsula, Arabs were using the Eastern Arabic numerals or "Mashriki" numerals: ٠ ١ ٢ ٣ ٤ ٥ ٦ ٧ ٨ ٩