title: Jerry Lewis

text: Also on "SNL", the Martin and Lewis reunion on the 1976 MDA Telethon is reported by Chevy Chase on "Weekend Update". Comedians Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo both parodied Lewis when he hosted SNL in 1983. Piscopo also channeled Jerry Lewis while performing as a 20th-century stand-up comedian in ""; in the second-season episode "The Outrageous Okona", Piscopo's Holodeck character, The Comic, tutors android Lieutenant Commander Data on humor and comedy. Comedian and actor Jim Carrey satirized Lewis on "In Living Color" in the sketch "Jheri's Kids Telethon". Carrey had an uncredited cameo playing Lewis in the series "Buffalo Bill" on the episode "Jerry Lewis Week". He also played Lewis, with impersonator Rich Little as Dean Martin, on stage. Actor Sean Hayes portrayed Lewis in the made-for-TV movie "Martin and Lewis", with Jeremy Northam as Dean Martin. Actor Kevin Bacon plays the Lewis character in the 2005 film "Where The Truth Lies," based on a fictionalized version of Martin and Lewis. In the satiric novel, "Funny Men", about singer/wild comic double act, the character Sigmund "Ziggy" Blissman, is based on Lewis.


title: Jerry Lewis

text: John Saleeby, writer for "National Lampoon" has a humor piece "Ten Things You Should Know About Jerry Lewis". In the animated cartoon "Popeye's 20th Anniversary", Martin and Lewis are portrayed on the dais. The animated series "Animaniacs" satirized Lewis in several episodes. The voice and boyish, naive cartoon character "SpongeBob SquarePants" is partially based on Lewis, with particular inspiration from his film "The Bellboy". In 1998, The MTV animated show "Celebrity Deathmatch" had a clay-animated fight to the death between Dean Martin and Lewis. In a 1975 re-issue of "MAD Magazine" the contents of Lewis's wallet is satirized in their on-going feature "Celebrities' Wallets".


title: Jerry Lewis

text: Lewis, and Martin & Lewis, as himself or his films, have been referenced by directors and performers of differing genres spanning decades, including Andy Warhol's "Soap Opera" (1964), John Frankenheimer's "I Walk the Line" (1970), Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather" (1972), Randal Kleiser's "Grease" (1978), Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "In a Year of 13 Moons" (1978), Robert Zemeckis's "Back to the Future" (1985), Quentin Tarantino's "Four Rooms" (1995), Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" (2002), "Hitchcock" (2012), Ben Stiller's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (2013), Jay Roach's "Trumbo" (2015), "The Comedians" (2015), "Baskets" (2016) and "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" (2017, 2018).


title: Jerry Lewis

text: Similarly, varied musicians have mentioned Lewis in song lyrics including, Ice Cube, The Dead Milkmen, Queen Latifah, and Frank Zappa. The hip hop music band Beastie Boys have an unreleased single "The Jerry Lewis", which they mention, and danced to, on stage in Asheville, North Carolina in 2009. In their film "Paul's Boutique — A Visual Companion", clips from "The Nutty Professor" play to . In 1986, the comedy radio show "Dr. Demento" aired a parody of "Rock Me Amadeus", "Rock Me Jerry Lewis".


title: Jerry Lewis

text: Apple iOS 10 includes an auto-text emoji for 'professor' with a Lewis lookalike portrayal from "The Nutty Professor".


title: Jerry Lewis

text: The word "flaaaven!", with its many variations and rhymes, is a Lewis-ism often used as a misspoken word or a person's mis-pronounced name. In a 2016 episode of the podcast "West Wing Weekly", Joshua Malina is heard saying "flaven" when trying to remember a character's correct last name. Lewis's signature catchphrase "Hey, Laaady!" is ubiquitously used by comedians and laypersons alike.


title: Jerry Lewis

text: Sammy Petrillo bore a coincidental resemblance to Lewis, so much so that Lewis at first tried to catch and kill Petrillo's career by signing him to a talent contract and then not giving him any work. When that failed (as Petrillo was under 18 at the time), Lewis tried to blackball Petrillo by pressuring television outlets and then nightclubs, also threatening legal action after Petrillo used his Lewis impersonation in the film "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla".


title: Köppen climate classification

text: The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notably in 1918 and 1936. Later, the climatologist Rudolf Geiger (1894–1981) introduced some changes to the classification system, which is thus sometimes called the Köppen–Geiger climate classification system.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: The Köppen climate classification divides climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on seasonal precipitation and temperature patterns. The five main groups are "A" (tropical), "B" (arid), "C" (temperate), "D" (continental), and "E" (polar). Each group and subgroup is represented by a letter. All climates are assigned a main group (the first letter). All climates except for those in the "E" group are assigned a seasonal precipitation subgroup (the second letter). For example, "Af" indicates a tropical rainforest climate. The system assigns a temperature subgroup for all groups other than those in the "A" group, indicated by the third letter for climates in "B", "C", and "D", and the second letter for climates in "E". For example, "Cfb" indicates an oceanic climate with warm summers as indicated by the ending "b". Climates are classified based on specific criteria unique to each climate type.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: As Köppen designed the system based on his experience as a botanist, his main climate groups are based on what types of vegetation grow in a given climate classification region. In addition to identifying climates, the system can be used to analyze ecosystem conditions and identify the main types of vegetation within climates. Due to its link with the plant life of a given region, the system is useful in predicting future changes in plant life within that region.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: The Köppen climate classification system was further modified within the Trewartha climate classification system in the mid-1960s (revised in 1980). The Trewartha system sought to create a more refined middle latitude climate zone, which was one of the criticisms of the Köppen system (the C climate group was too broad).


title: Köppen climate classification

text: The Köppen climate classification scheme divides climates into five main climate groups: "A" (tropical), "B" (arid), "C" (temperate), "D" (continental), and "E" (polar). The second letter indicates the seasonal precipitation type, while the third letter indicates the level of heat. Summers are defined as the 6-month period that is warmer either from April–September and/or October–March while winter is the 6-month period that is cooler.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: This type of climate has every month of the year with an average temperature of or higher, with significant precipitation.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: This type of climate is defined by little precipitation that does not fit the polar (EF or ET) criteria of no month with an average temperature greater than .


title: Köppen climate classification

text: The threshold in millimeters is determined by multiplying the average annual temperature in Celsius by 20, then adding:


title: Köppen climate classification

text: If the annual precipitation is less than 50% of this threshold, the classification is BW (arid: desert climate); if it is in the range of 50%–100% of the threshold, the classification is BS (semi-arid: steppe climate).


title: Köppen climate classification

text: A third letter can be included to indicate temperature. Originally, h signified low-latitude climate (average annual temperature above ) while k signified middle-latitude climate (average annual temperature below 18 °C), but the more common practice today, especially in the United States, is to use h to mean the coldest month has an average temperature above (or ), with k denoting that at least one month's averages below 0 °C (or ). In addition, n is used to denote a climate characterized by frequent fog and H for high altitudes.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: This type of climate has the coldest month averaging between (or ) and and at least one month averaging above . For the distribution of precipitation in locations that both satisfy a dry summer (Cs) and a dry winter (Cw), a location is considered to have a wet summer (Cw) when more precipitation falls within the summer months than the winter months while a location is considered to have a dry summer (Cs) when more precipitation falls within the winter months. This additional criterion applies to locations that satisfies both Ds and Dw as well.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: This type of climate has at least one month averaging below (or ) and at least one month averaging above .


title: Köppen climate classification

text: Tropical climates are characterized by constant high temperatures (at sea level and low elevations); all 12 months of the year have average temperatures of 18 °C (64.4 °F) or higher; and generally high annual precipitation. They are subdivided as follows:


title: Köppen climate classification

text: All 12 months have an average precipitation of at least . These climates usually occur within 10° latitude of the equator. This climate has no natural seasons in terms of thermal and moisture changes. When it is dominated most of the year by the doldrums low-pressure system due to the presence of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and when there are no cyclones then the climate is qualified as equatorial. When the trade winds dominate most of the year, the climate is a tropical trade-wind rainforest climate.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: Some of the places with this climate are indeed uniformly and monotonously wet throughout the year (e.g., the northwest Pacific coast of South and Central America, from Ecuador to Costa Rica; see, for instance, Andagoya, Colombia), but in many cases, the period of higher sun and longer days is distinctly wettest (as at Palembang, Indonesia) or the time of lower sun and shorter days may have more rain (as at Sitiawan, Malaysia).


title: Köppen climate classification

text: Among these places, some have a pure equatorial climate (Balikpapan, Kuala Lumpur, Kuching, Lae, Medan, Paramaribo, Pontianak, and Singapore) with the dominant ITCZ aerological mechanism and no cyclones or a subequatorial climate with occasional hurricanes (Davao, Ratnapura, Victoria).


title: Köppen climate classification

text: (Note. The term aseasonal refers to the lack in the tropical zone of large differences in daylight hours and mean monthly (or daily) temperature throughout the year. Annual cyclic changes occur in the tropics, but not as predictably as those in the temperate zone, albeit unrelated to temperature, but to water availability whether as rain, mist, soil, or groundwater. Plant response (e. g., phenology), animal (feeding, migration, reproduction, etc.), and human activities (plant sowing, harvesting, hunting, fishing, etc.) are tuned to this 'seasonality'. Indeed, in tropical South America and Central America, the 'rainy season (and the 'high water season') is called " Invierno" or "Inverno", though it could occur in the Northern Hemisphere summer; likewise, the 'dry season (and 'low water season') is called " Verano" or "verão", and can occur in the Northern Hemisphere winter).


title: Köppen climate classification

text: This type of climate results from the monsoon winds which change direction according to the seasons. This climate has a driest month (which nearly always occurs at or soon after the "winter" solstice for that side of the equator) with rainfall less than , but at least formula_3 of average monthly precipitation.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: "Aw" climates have a pronounced dry season, with the driest month having precipitation less than and less than formula_4 of average monthly precipitation.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: Most places that have this climate are found at the outer margins of the tropical zone from the low teens to the mid-20s latitudes, but occasionally an inner-tropical location (e.g., San Marcos, Antioquia, Colombia) also qualifies. The Caribbean coast, eastward from the Gulf of Urabá on the Colombia–Panamá border to the Orinoco River delta, on the Atlantic Ocean (about 4,000  km), have long dry periods (the extreme is the "BSh" climate (see below), characterized by very low, unreliable precipitation, present, for instance, in extensive areas in the , and Coro, western Venezuela, the northernmost peninsulas in South America, which receive <300  mm total annual precipitation, practically all in two or three months).


title: Köppen climate classification

text: This condition extends to the Lesser Antilles and Greater Antilles forming the circum-Caribbean dry belt. The length and severity of the dry season diminish inland (southward); at the latitude of the Amazon River—which flows eastward, just south of the equatorial line—the climate is "Af". East from the Andes, between the dry, arid Caribbean and the ever-wet Amazon are the Orinoco River's Llanos or savannas, from where this climate takes its name.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: Sometimes "As" is used in place of "Aw" if the dry season occurs during the time of higher sun and longer days (during summer). This is the case in parts of Hawaii, northwestern Dominican Republic, East Africa, and the Brazilian Northeastern Coast. In most places that have tropical wet and dry climates, however, the dry season occurs during the time of lower sun and shorter days because of rain shadow effects during the 'high-sun' part of the year.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: These climates are characterized by the amount of annual precipitation less than a threshold value that approximates the potential evapotranspiration. The threshold value (in millimeters) is calculated as follows:


title: Köppen climate classification

text: According to the modified Köppen classification system used by modern climatologists, total precipitation in the warmest six months of the year is taken as a reference instead of the total precipitation in the high-sun half of the year.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: If the annual precipitation is less than 50% of this threshold, the classification is "BW" (arid: desert climate); if it is in the range of 50%–100% of the threshold, the classification is "BS" (semi-arid: steppe climate).


title: Köppen climate classification

text: A third letter can be included to indicate temperature. Originally, "h" signified low-latitude climate (average annual temperature above 18 °C) while "k" signified middle-latitude climate (average annual temperature below 18 °C), but the more common practice today, especially in the United States, is to use "h" to mean the coldest month has an average temperature above 0 °C (32 °F) (or ), with "k" denoting that at least one month averages below 0 °C.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: Desert areas situated along the west coasts of continents at tropical or near-tropical locations characterized by frequent fog and low clouds, although these places rank among the driest on earth in terms of actual precipitation received are labeled "BWn" with the n denoting a climate characterized by frequent fog. The "BSN" category can be found in foggy coastal steppes.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: In the Köppen climate system, temperate climates are defined as having an average temperature above (or , as noted previously) in their coldest month but below . The average temperature of roughly coincides with the equatorward limit of frozen ground and snow cover lasting for a month or more.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: The second letter indicates the precipitation pattern—"w" indicates dry winters (driest winter month average precipitation less than one-tenth wettest summer month average precipitation). "s" indicates at least three times as much rain in the wettest month of winter as in the driest month of summer. "f" means significant precipitation in all seasons (neither above-mentioned set of conditions fulfilled).


title: Köppen climate classification

text: The third letter indicates the degree of summer heat—"a" indicates warmest month average temperature above while "b" indicates warmest month averaging below 22 °C but with at least four months averaging above , and "c" indicates one to three months averaging above .


title: Köppen climate classification

text: These climates usually occur on the western sides of continents between the latitudes of 30° and 45°. These climates are in the polar front region in winter, and thus have moderate temperatures and changeable, rainy weather. Summers are hot and dry, due to the domination of the subtropical high-pressure systems, except in the immediate coastal areas, where summers are milder due to the nearby presence of cold ocean currents that may bring fog but prevent rain.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: Dry-summer climates sometimes extend to additional areas (sometimes well north or south of) typical Mediterranean climates, however since their warmest month average temperatures do not reach they are classified as "Csb". Some of these areas would border the oceanic climate ("Cfb"), except their dry-summer patterns meet Köppen's "Cs" minimum thresholds.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: Cold summer Mediterranean climates ("Csc") exist in high-elevation areas adjacent to coastal "Csb" climate areas, where the strong maritime influence prevents the average winter monthly temperature from dropping below 0 °C. This climate is rare and is predominantly found in climate fringes and isolated areas of the Cascades and Andes Mountains, as the dry-summer climate extends further poleward in the Americas than elsewhere. Rare instances of this climate can be found in some coastal locations in the North Atlantic and at high altitudes in Hawaii.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: These climates usually occur on the eastern coasts and eastern sides of continents, usually in the high 20s and 30s latitudes. Unlike the dry summer Mediterranean climates, humid subtropical climates have a warm and wet flow from the tropics that creates warm and moist conditions in the summer months. As such, summer (not winter as is the case in Mediterranean climates) is often the wettest season.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: The flow out of the subtropical highs and the summer monsoon creates a southerly flow from the tropics that brings warm and moist air to the lower east sides of continents. This flow is often what brings the frequent but short-lived summer thundershowers so typical of the more southerly subtropical climates like the southern United States, southern China, and Japan.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: "Cfb" climates usually occur in the higher middle latitudes on the western sides of continents between the latitudes of 40° and 60°; they are typically situated immediately poleward of the Mediterranean climates. However, in southeast Australia, southeast South America, and extreme southern Africa this climate is found immediately poleward of temperate climates, on places near the coast and at a somewhat lower latitude. In western Europe, this climate occurs in coastal areas up to 68°N in Norway.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: These climates are dominated all year round by the polar front, leading to changeable, often overcast weather. Summers are mild due to cool ocean currents. Winters are milder than other climates in similar latitudes, but usually very cloudy, and frequently wet. "Cfb" climates are also encountered at high elevations in certain subtropical and tropical areas, where the climate would be that of a subtropical/tropical rainforest if not for the altitude. These climates are called "highlands".


title: Köppen climate classification

text: Subtropical highland climates with uniform rainfall ("Cfb") are a type of oceanic climate mainly found in the highlands of Australia, such as in or around the Great Dividing Range in the north of the state of New South Wales, and also sparsely in other continents, such as in South America, among others. Unlike a typical "Cwb" climate, they tend to have rainfall spread evenly throughout the year. They have characteristics of both the "Cfb" and "Cfa" climates, but unlike these climates, they have a high diurnal temperature variation and low humidity, owing to their inland location and relatively high elevation.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: Subpolar oceanic climates ("Cfc") occur poleward of or at higher elevations than the maritime temperate climates and are mostly confined either to narrow coastal strips on the western poleward margins of the continents, or, especially in the Northern Hemisphere, to islands off such coasts. They occur in both hemispheres, most often at latitudes from 60° north and south to 70° north and south.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: "Cwa" is monsoonal influenced, having the classic dry winter–wet summer pattern associated with tropical monsoonal climates. They are found at similar latitudes as the "Cfa" climates, except in regions (such as southeast Asia) where monsoons are more prevalent.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: Dry-winter subtropical highland climate ("Cwb") is a type of climate mainly found in highlands inside the tropics of Central America, South America, Africa, and Asia or areas in the subtropics. Winters are noticeable and dry, and summers can be very rainy. In the tropics, the monsoon is provoked by the tropical air masses and the dry winters by subtropical high pressure.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: Dry-winter cold subtropical highland climates ("Cwc") exist in high-elevation areas adjacent to "Cwb" climates. This climate is rare and is found mainly in isolated locations mostly in the Andes in Bolivia and Peru, as well as in sparse mountain locations in Southeast Asia.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: These climates have an average temperature above 10 °C (50 °F) in their warmest months, and the coldest month average below 0 °C (or , as noted previously). These usually occur in the interiors of continents and on their upper east coasts, normally north of 40°N. In the Southern Hemisphere, group D climates are extremely rare due to the smaller land masses in the middle latitudes and the almost complete absence of land at 40–60°S, existing only in some highland locations.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: "Dfa" climates usually occur in the high 30s and low 40s latitudes, with a qualifying average temperature in the warmest month of greater than . In Europe, these climates tend to be much drier than in North America. "Dsa" exists at higher elevations adjacent to areas with hot summer Mediterranean ("Csa") climates.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: These climates exist only in the northern hemisphere because the southern hemisphere has no large landmasses isolated from the moderating effects of the sea within the middle latitudes.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: In eastern Asia, "Dwa" climates extend further south due to the influence of the Siberian high-pressure system, which also causes winters there to be dry, and summers can be very wet because of monsoon Circulation.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: "Dsa" exists only at higher elevations adjacent to areas with hot summer Mediterranean ("Csa") climates.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: "Dfb" climates are immediately poleward of hot summer continental climates, generally in the high 40s and low 50s latitudes in North America and Asia, and also extending to higher latitudes in central and eastern Europe and Russia, between the maritime temperate and continental subarctic climates, where it extends up to 65 degrees latitude in places.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: "Dsb" arises from the same scenario as "Dsa", but at even higher altitudes or latitudes, and chiefly in North America, since the Mediterranean climates extend further poleward than in Eurasia.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: "Dfc", "Dsc" and "Dwc" climates occur poleward of the other group D climates, or at higher altitudes, generally between the 55° to 65° North latitudes, occasionally reaching up to the 70°N latitude.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: Places with this climate have severe winters, with the temperature in their coldest month lower than −38 °C. These climates occur only in eastern Siberia. The names of some of the places with this climate have become veritable synonyms for the extreme, severe winter cold.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: In the Köppen climate system, polar climates are defined as the warmest temperature of any month being below 10 °C (50 °F). Polar climates are further divided into two types, tundra climates and icecap climates:


title: Köppen climate classification

text: Tundra climate ("ET"): Warmest month has an average temperature between 0 and 10 °C. These climates occur on the northern edges of the North American and Eurasian land masses (generally north of 70 °N although they may be found farther south depending on local conditions), and on nearby islands. "ET" climates are also found on some islands near the Antarctic Convergence, and at high elevations outside the polar regions, above the tree line.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: Ice cap climate ("EF"): This climate is dominant in Antarctica, inner Greenland, and summits of many high mountains, even at lower latitudes. Monthly average temperatures never exceed 0 °C (32 °F).


title: Köppen climate classification

text: The Köppen climate classification is based on the empirical relationship between climate and vegetation. This classification provides an efficient way to describe climatic conditions defined by temperature and precipitation and their seasonality with a single metric. Because climatic conditions identified by the Köppen classification are ecologically relevant, it has been widely used to map the geographic distribution of long-term climate and associated ecosystem conditions.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: Over recent years, there has been an increasing interest in using the classification to identify changes in climate and potential changes in vegetation over time. The most important ecological significance of the Köppen climate classification is that it helps to predict the dominant vegetation type based on the climatic data and vice versa.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: In 2015, a Nanjing University paper published in "Scientific Reports" analyzing climate classifications found that between 1950 and 2010, approximately 5.7% of all land area worldwide had moved from wetter and colder classifications to drier and hotter classifications. The authors also found that the change "cannot be explained as natural variations but are driven by anthropogenic factors."


title: Köppen climate classification

text: A 2018 "Nature" study provides detailed maps for present and future Köppen-Geiger climate classification maps at 1-km resolution.


title: Köppen climate classification

text: All maps use the ≥0 °C (or >-3 °C) definition for temperate climates, the 18 °C (or >0 °C or >-3 °C) annual mean temperature threshold to distinguish between hot and cold dry climates, and solely 18 °C for tropical climates.


title: Irish Republican Army

text: The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various paramilitary organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dedicated to irredentism through Irish republicanism, the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic free from British rule.


title: Irish Republican Army

text: The original Irish Republican Army (1919–1922), often now referred to as the "old IRA", was raised in 1917 from members of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army later reinforced by Irishmen formerly in the British Army in World War I, who returned to Ireland to fight against Britain in the Irish War of Independence. In Irish law, this IRA was the army of the revolutionary Irish Republic as declared by its parliament, Dáil Éireann, in 1919.


title: Irish Republican Army

text: In the century that followed, the original IRA was reorganised, changed and split on multiple occasions, to such a degree that many subsequent paramilitary organisations have been known by that title – most notably the Provisional Irish Republican Army,


title: Irish Republican Army

text: which was a key participant during the 1969-1998 Troubles in Northern Ireland. The contemporary IRA organisations each claim the sole right to the name, each insisting they are the original IRA's only legitimate descendant.


title: Irish Republican Army

text: The playwright and former IRA member Brendan Behan once said that the first issue on any Irish organisation's agenda was "the split". For the IRA, that has often been the case. The first split came after the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, with supporters of the Treaty forming the nucleus of the National Army of the newly created Irish Free State, while the anti-treaty forces continued to use the name "Irish Republican Army". After the end of the Irish Civil War (1922–23), the IRA was around in one form or another for forty years, when it split into the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA in 1969. The latter then had its own breakaways, namely the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, each claiming to be the true successor of the Army of the Irish Republic.


title: Bubonic plague

text: Bubonic plague is one of three types of plague caused by the plague bacterium ("Yersinia pestis"). One to seven days after exposure to the bacteria, flu-like symptoms develop. These symptoms include fever, headaches, and vomiting, as well as swollen and painful lymph nodes occurring in the area closest to where the bacteria entered the skin. Acral necrosis, the dark discoloration of skin, is another symptom. Occasionally, swollen lymph nodes, known as "buboes," may break open.


title: Bubonic plague

text: The three types of plague are the result of the route of infection: bubonic plague, septicemic plague, and pneumonic plague. Bubonic plague is mainly spread by infected fleas from small animals. It may also result from exposure to the body fluids from a dead plague-infected animal. Mammals such as rabbits, hares, and some cat species are susceptible to bubonic plague, and typically die upon contraction. In the bubonic form of plague, the bacteria enter through the skin through a flea bite and travel via the lymphatic vessels to a lymph node, causing it to swell. Diagnosis is made by finding the bacteria in the blood, sputum, or fluid from lymph nodes.


title: Bubonic plague

text: Prevention is through public health measures such as not handling dead animals in areas where plague is common. While vaccines against the plague have been developed, the World Health Organization recommends that only high-risk groups, such as certain laboratory personnel and health care workers, get inoculated. Several antibiotics are effective for treatment, including streptomycin, gentamicin, and doxycycline.


title: Bubonic plague

text: Without treatment, plague results in the death of 30% to 90% of those infected. Death, if it occurs, is typically within 10 days. With treatment, the risk of death is around 10%. Globally between 2010 and 2015 there were 3,248 documented cases, which resulted in 584 deaths. The countries with the greatest number of cases are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, and Peru.


title: Bubonic plague

text: The plague is considered the likely cause of the Black Death that swept through Asia, Europe, and Africa in the 14th century and killed an estimated 50 million people, including about 25% to 60% of the European population. Because the plague killed so many of the working population, wages rose due to the demand for labor. Some historians see this as a turning point in European economic development. The disease is also considered to have been responsible for the Plague of Justinian, originating in the Eastern Roman Empire in the 6th century CE, as well as the third epidemic, affecting China, Mongolia, and India, originating in the Yunnan Province in 1855. The term "bubonic" is derived from the Greek word βουβών, meaning "groin".


title: Bubonic plague

text: Bubonic plague is an infection of the lymphatic system, usually resulting from the bite of an infected flea, "Xenopsylla cheopis" (the Oriental rat flea). Several flea species carried the bubonic plague, such as "Pulex irritans" (the human flea), "Xenopsylla cheopis", and "Ceratophyllus fasciatus". "Xenopsylla cheopis" was the most effective flea species for transmittal. In very rare circumstances, as in septicemic plague, the disease can be transmitted by direct contact with infected tissue or exposure to the cough of another human. The flea is parasitic on house and field rats and seeks out other prey when its rodent hosts die. Rats were an amplifying factor to bubonic plague due to their common association with humans as well as the nature of their blood. The rat's blood allowed the rat to withstand a major concentration of the plague. The bacteria form aggregates in the gut of infected fleas and this results in the flea regurgitating ingested blood, which is now infected, into the bite site of a rodent or human host. Once established, bacteria rapidly spread to the lymph nodes and multiply. The fleas that transmit the disease only directly infect humans when the rat population in the area is wiped out from a mass infection. Furthermore, in areas of a large population of rats, the animals can harbor low levels of the plague infection without causing human outbreaks. With no new rat inputs being added to the population from other areas, the infection would only spread to humans in very rare cases of overcrowding.


title: Bubonic plague

text: After being transmitted via the bite of an infected flea, the "Y. pestis" bacteria become localized in an inflamed lymph node, where they begin to colonize and reproduce. Infected lymph nodes develop hemorrhages, which result in the death of tissue."Y. pestis" bacilli can resist phagocytosis and even reproduce inside phagocytes and kill them. As the disease progresses, the lymph nodes can hemorrhage and become swollen and necrotic. Bubonic plague can progress to lethal septicemic plague in some cases. The plague is also known to spread to the lungs and become the disease known as the pneumonic plague. Symptoms appear 2–7 days after getting bitten and they include:


title: Bubonic plague

text: The best-known symptom of bubonic plague is one or more infected, enlarged, and painful lymph nodes, known as buboes. Buboes associated with the bubonic plague are commonly found in the armpits, upper femoral, groin, and neck region. Symptoms include heavy breathing, continuous vomiting of blood (hematemesis), aching limbs, coughing, and extreme pain caused by the decay or decomposition of the skin while the person is still alive. Additional symptoms include extreme fatigue, gastrointestinal problems, spleen inflammation, lenticulae (black dots scattered throughout the body), delirium, coma, organ failure, and death. Organ failure is a result of the bacteria infecting organs through the bloodstream. Other forms of the disease include septicemic plague and pneumonic plague in which the bacterium reproduces in the person's blood and lungs respectively.


title: Bubonic plague

text: Laboratory testing is required in order to diagnose and confirm plague. Ideally, confirmation is through the identification of "Y. pestis" culture from a patient sample. Confirmation of infection can be done by examining serum taken during the early and late stages of infection. To quickly screen for the "Y. pestis" antigen in patients, rapid dipstick tests have been developed for field use. Samples taken for testing include:


title: Bubonic plague

text: Bubonic plague outbreaks are controlled by pest control and modern sanitation techniques. This disease uses fleas commonly found on rats as a vector to jump from animals to humans. The mortality rate hits its peak during the hot and humid months of June, July, and August. Furthermore, the plague most affected those of poor upbringing due to greater exposure, poor sanitation techniques and lack of a healthy immune system due to a poor diet. The successful control of rat populations in dense urban areas is essential to outbreak prevention. One example is the use of a machine called the Sulfurozador, used to deliver sulphur dioxide to eradicate the pest that spread the bubonic plague, in Buenos Aires, Argentina during the early 18th century. Targeted chemoprophylaxis, sanitation, and vector control also played a role in controlling the 2003 Oran outbreak of the bubonic plague. Another means of prevention in large European cities was a city-wide quarantine to not only limit interaction with people who were infected, but also to limit the interaction with the infected rats.


title: Bubonic plague

text: Several classes of antibiotics are effective in treating bubonic plague. These include aminoglycosides such as streptomycin and gentamicin, tetracyclines (especially doxycycline), and the fluoroquinolone ciprofloxacin. Mortality associated with treated cases of bubonic plague is about 1–15%, compared to a mortality of 40–60% in untreated cases.


title: Bubonic plague

text: People potentially infected with the plague need immediate treatment and should be given antibiotics within 24 hours of the first symptoms to prevent death. Other treatments include oxygen, intravenous fluids, and respiratory support. People who have had contact with anyone infected by pneumonic plague are given prophylactic antibiotics. Using the broad-based antibiotic streptomycin has proven to be dramatically successful against the bubonic plague within 12 hours of infection.


title: Bubonic plague

text: Globally between 2010 and 2015, there were 3,248 documented cases, which resulted in 584 deaths. The countries with the greatest number of cases are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, and Peru.


title: Bubonic plague

text: For over a decade since 2001, Zambia, India, Malawi, Algeria, China, Peru, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo had the most plague cases with over 1,100 cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone. From 1,000 to 2,000 cases are conservatively reported per year to the WHO. From 2012 to 2017, reflecting political unrest and poor hygienic conditions, Madagascar began to host regular epidemics.


title: Bubonic plague

text: Between 1900 and 2015, the United States had 1,036 human plague cases with an average of 9 cases per year. In 2015, 16 people in the Western United States developed plague, including 2 cases in Yosemite National Park. These US cases usually occur in rural northern New Mexico, northern Arizona, southern Colorado, California, southern Oregon, and far western Nevada.


title: Bubonic plague

text: In November 2017, the Madagascar Ministry of Health reported an outbreak to the WHO (World Health Organization) with more cases and deaths than any recent outbreak in the country. Unusually, most of the cases were pneumonic rather than bubonic.


title: Bubonic plague

text: In June 2018, a child was confirmed to be the first person in Idaho to be infected by bubonic plague in nearly 30 years.


title: Bubonic plague

text: A couple died in May 2019, in Mongolia, while hunting marmots. Another two people in the province of Inner Mongolia, China were treated in November 2019 for the disease.


title: Bubonic plague

text: In July 2020, in Bayannur, Inner Mongolia of China, a human case of bubonic plague was reported. Officials responded by activating a city-wide plague-prevention system for the remainder of the year. Also in July 2020, in Mongolia, a teenager died from bubonic plague after consuming infected marmot meat.


title: Bubonic plague

text: "Yersinia pestis" has been discovered in archaeological finds from the Late Bronze Age (~3800 BP). The bacteria is identified by ancient DNA in human teeth from Asia and Europe dating from 2,800 to 5,000 years ago. Some authors have suggested that the plague was responsible for the Neolithic decline.


title: Bubonic plague

text: The first recorded epidemic affected the Sasanian Empire and their arch-rivals, the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) and was named the Plague of Justinian after emperor Justinian I, who was infected but survived through extensive treatment. The pandemic resulted in the deaths of an estimated 25 million (6th century outbreak) to 50 million people (two centuries of recurrence). The historian Procopius wrote, in Volume II of "History of the Wars", of his personal encounter with the plague and the effect it had on the rising empire. In the spring of 542, the plague arrived in Constantinople, working its way from port city to port city and spreading around the Mediterranean Sea, later migrating inland eastward into Asia Minor and west into Greece and Italy. The Plague of Justinian is said to have been "completed" in the middle of the 8th century. Because the infectious disease spread inland by the transferring of merchandise through Justinian's efforts in acquiring luxurious goods of the time and exporting supplies, his capital became the leading exporter of the bubonic plague. Procopius, in his work "Secret History", declared that Justinian was a demon of an emperor who either created the plague himself or was being punished for his sinfulness.


title: Bubonic plague

text: In the Late Middle Ages Europe experienced the deadliest disease outbreak in history when the Black Death, the infamous pandemic of bubonic plague, hit in 1347, killing one-third of the European human population. Some historians believe that society subsequently became more violent as the mass mortality rate cheapened life and thus increased warfare, crime, popular revolt, waves of flagellants, and persecution. The Black Death originated in Central Asia and spread from Italy and then throughout other European countries. Arab historians Ibn Al-Wardni and Almaqrizi believed the Black Death originated in Mongolia. Chinese records also showed a huge outbreak in Mongolia in the early 1330s.


title: Bubonic plague

text: In 2022, researchers presented evidence that the plague originated near Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan. The Mongols had cut the trade route (the Silk Road) between China and Europe, which halted the spread of the Black Death from eastern Russia to Western Europe. The European epidemic began with an attack that Mongols launched on the Italian merchants' last trading station in the region, Caffa in the Crimea.


title: Bubonic plague

text: In late 1346, plague broke out among the besiegers and from them penetrated the town. The Mongol forces catapulted plague-infested corpses into Caffa as a form of attack, one of the first known instances of biological warfare. When spring arrived, the Italian merchants fled on their ships, unknowingly carrying the Black Death. Carried by the fleas on rats, the plague initially spread to humans near the Black Sea and then outwards to the rest of Europe as a result of people fleeing from one area to another. Rats migrated with humans, traveling among grain bags, clothing, ships, wagons, and grain husks. Continued research indicates that black rats, those that primarily transmitted the disease, prefer grain as a primary meal. Due to this, the major bulk grain fleets that transported major city's food shipments from Africa and Alexandria to heavily populated areas, and were then unloaded by hand, played a role in increasing the transmission effectiveness of the plague.


title: Bubonic plague

text: The plague resurfaced for a third time in the mid-19th century; this is also known as "the modern pandemic". Like the two previous outbreaks, this one also originated in Eastern Asia, most likely in Yunnan, a province of China, where there are several natural plague foci. The initial outbreaks occurred in the second half of the 18th century. The disease remained localized in Southwest China for several years before spreading. In the city of Canton, beginning in January 1894, the disease had killed 80,000 people by June. Daily water-traffic with the nearby city of Hong Kong rapidly spread the plague there, killing over 2,400 within two months during the 1894 Hong Kong plague.


title: Bubonic plague

text: The third pandemic spread the disease to port cities throughout the world in the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century via shipping routes. The plague infected people in Chinatown in San Francisco from 1900 to 1904, and in the nearby locales of Oakland and the East Bay again from 1907 to 1909. During the former outbreak, in 1902, authorities made permanent the Chinese Exclusion Act, a law originally signed into existence by President Chester A. Arthur in 1882. The Act was supposed to last for 10 years, but was renewed in 1892 with the Geary Act, then followed by the 1902 decision. The last major outbreak in the United States occurred in Los Angeles in 1924, though the disease is still present in wild rodents and can be passed to humans that come in contact with them. According to the World Health Organization, the pandemic was considered active until 1959, when worldwide casualties dropped to 200 per year. In 1994, a plague outbreak in five Indian states caused an estimated 700 infections (including 52 deaths) and triggered a large migration of Indians within India as they tried to avoid the disease.


title: Bubonic plague

text: It was during the 1894 Hong Kong plague outbreak that Alexandre Yersin isolated the bacterium responsible ("Yersinia pestis"), a few days after Japanese bacteriologist Kitasato Shibasaburō had isolated it. However, the latter's description was imprecise and also expressed doubts of its relation to the disease, and thus the bacterium is today only named after Yersin.


title: Bubonic plague

text: The scale of death and social upheaval associated with plague outbreaks has made the topic prominent in many historical and fictional accounts since the disease was first recognized. The Black Death in particular is described and referenced in numerous contemporary sources, some of which, including works by Chaucer, Boccaccio, and Petrarch, are considered part of the Western canon. "The Decameron", by Boccaccio, is notable for its use of a frame story involving individuals who have fled Florence for a secluded villa to escape the Black Death. First-person, sometimes sensationalized or fictionalized, accounts of living through plague years have also been popular across centuries and cultures. For example, Samuel Pepys's diary makes several references to his first-hand experiences of the Great Plague of London in 1665–6.


title: Bubonic plague

text: Later works, such as Albert Camus's novel "The Plague" or Ingmar Bergman's film "The Seventh Seal" have used bubonic plague in settings, such as quarantined cities in either medieval or modern times, as a backdrop to explore a variety of concepts. Common themes include the breakdown of society, institutions, and individuals during the plague, the cultural and psychological existential confrontation with mortality, and the allegorical use of the plague about contemporary moral or spiritual questions.


title: Bubonic plague

text: Some of the earliest instances of biological warfare were said to have been products of the plague, as armies of the 14th century were recorded catapulting diseased corpses over the walls of towns and villages to spread the pestilence. This was done by Jani Beg when he attacked the city of Kaffa in 1343.


title: Bubonic plague

text: Later, plague was used during the Second Sino-Japanese War as a bacteriological weapon by the Imperial Japanese Army. These weapons were provided by Shirō Ishii's units and used in experiments on humans before being used in the field. For example, in 1940, the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service bombed Ningbo with fleas carrying the bubonic plague. During the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials, the accused, such as Major General Kiyoshi Kawashima, testified that, in 1941, 40 members of Unit 731 air-dropped plague-contaminated fleas on Changde. These operations caused epidemic plague outbreaks.


title: Bubonic plague

text: Substantial research has been done regarding the origin of the plague and how it traveled through the continent. Mitochondrial DNA of modern rats in Western Europe indicated that these rats came from two different areas, one being Africa and the other being unclear of a specific origin. The research regarding this pandemic has greatly increased with technology. Through archaeo-molecular investigation, researchers have discovered the DNA of plague bacillus in the dental core of those that fell ill to the plague. Analysis of teeth of the deceased allows researchers to further understand both the demographics and mortuary patterns of the disease. For example, in 2013 in England, archeologists uncovered a burial mound to reveal 17 bodies, mainly children, who had died of the Bubonic plague. They analyzed these burial remains using radiocarbon dating to determine they were from the 1530s, and dental core analysis revealed the presence of Yersinia pestis.


title: Bubonic plague

text: Other evidence for rats that are currently still being researched consists of gnaw marks on bones, predator pellets and rat remains that were preserved in situ. This research allows individuals to trace early rat remains to track the path traveled and in turn connect the impact of the Bubonic Plague to specific breeds of rats. Burial sites, known as plague pits, offer archaeologists an opportunity to study the remains of people who died from the plague.


title: Bubonic plague

text: Another research study indicates that these separate pandemics were all interconnected. A current computer model indicates that the disease did not go away in between these pandemics. It rather lurked within the rat population for years without causing human epidemics.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Cyrus II of Persia (; ), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, the first Persian empire. Under his rule, the empire embraced all of the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Western Asia and much of Central Asia. Spanning from the Mediterranean Sea and Hellespont in the west to the Indus River in the east, the empire created by Cyrus was the largest the world had yet seen. At its maximum extent under his successors, the Achaemenid Empire stretched from parts of the Balkans (Eastern Bulgaria–Paeonia and Thrace–Macedonia) and Southeast Europe proper in the west to the Indus Valley in the east.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: The reign of Cyrus lasted about thirty years; his empire took root with his conquest of the Median Empire followed by the Lydian Empire and eventually the Neo-Babylonian Empire. He also led an expedition into Central Asia, which resulted in major campaigns that were described as having brought "into subjection every nation without exception". Cyrus did not venture into Egypt, and was alleged to have died in battle while fighting the Massagetae, an ancient Eastern Iranian nomadic tribal confederation, along the Syr Darya in December 530 BC. However, Xenophon claimed that Cyrus did not die in battle and returned to the Achaemenid ceremonial capital of Persepolis again. He was succeeded by his son, Cambyses II, who managed to conquer Egypt, Nubia and Cyrenaica during his short rule.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Known as Cyrus the Elder () to the Greeks, he was well-known for having respected the customs and religions of the lands he conquered. He was important in developing the system of a central administration at Pasargadae governing satraps in the empire's border regions, which worked very effectively and profitably for both rulers and subjects. The Edict of Restoration, a proclamation attested by a cylinder seal in which Cyrus authorized and encouraged the return of the Israelites to the Land of Israel following his conquest of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, is described in the Bible and likewise left a lasting legacy on the Jewish religion due to his role in ending the Babylonian captivity and facilitating the Jewish return to Zion. According to of the Hebrew Bible, God anointed Cyrus for this task, even referring to him as a messiah (); Cyrus is the only non-Jewish figure in the Bible to be revered in this capacity.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Cyrus is also recognized for his achievements in human rights, politics, and military strategy, as well as his influence on both Eastern and Western civilizations. The Achaemenid influence in the ancient world would eventually extend as far as Athens, where upper-class Athenians adopted aspects of the culture of the ruling class of Achaemenid Persia as their own. Having originated from Persis, roughly corresponding to the modern-day Fars Province of Iran, Cyrus has played a crucial role in defining the national identity of modern Iran. He remains a cult figure amongst modern Iranians, with his tomb serving as a spot of reverence for millions of people. In the 1970s, the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, identified Cyrus' famous proclamation inscribed onto the Cyrus Cylinder as the oldest-known declaration of human rights, and the Cylinder has since been popularized as such. This view has been criticized by some Western historians as a misunderstanding of the Cylinder's generic nature as a traditional statement that new monarchs make at the beginning of their reign.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: The name "Cyrus" is a Latinized form derived from the Greek-language name Κῦρος ("Kỹros"), which itself was derived from the Old Persian name "Kūruš". The name and its meaning have been recorded within ancient inscriptions in different languages. The ancient Greek historians Ctesias and Plutarch stated that Cyrus was named from the Sun ("Kuros"), a concept which has been interpreted as meaning "like the Sun" ("Khurvash") by noting its relation to the Persian noun for Sun, "khor", while using "-vash" as a suffix of likeness.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Karl Hoffmann has suggested a translation based on the meaning of an Indo-European root "to humiliate", and accordingly, the name "Cyrus" means "humiliator of the enemy in verbal contest". Another possible Iranian derivation would mean "the young one, child", related to Kurdish "kur" ("son, little boy") or Ossetian "i-gur-un" ("to be born") and "kur" (young bull). In the Persian language and especially in Iran, Cyrus' name is spelled as (, ). In the Bible, he is referred to in the Hebrew language as "Koresh" (). Some pieces of evidence suggest that Cyrus is Kay Khosrow, a legendary Persian king of the Kayanian dynasty and a character in "Shahnameh", a Persian epic.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Some scholars, however, believe that neither Cyrus nor Cambyses were Iranian names, proposing that Cyrus was Elamite in origin and that the name meant "he who bestows care" in the extinct Elamite language. One reason is that, while Elamite names may end in "-uš", no Elamite texts spell the name this way — only "Kuraš". Meanwhile, Old Persian did not allow names to end in "-aš", so it would make sense for Persian speakers to change an original "Kuraš" into the more grammatically correct form "Kuruš". Elamite scribes, on the other hand, would not have had a reason to change an original "Kuruš" into "Kuraš", since both forms were acceptable. Therefore, "Kuraš" probably represents the original form.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: The Persian domination and kingdom in the Iranian plateau started as an extension of the Achaemenid dynasty, who expanded their earlier dominion possibly from the 9th century BC onward. The eponymous founder of the dynasty was Achaemenes (from Old Persian "Haxāmaniš"). Achaemenids are "descendants of Achaemenes", as Darius the Great, the ninth king of the dynasty, traces his ancestry to him, declaring "for this reason we are called Achaemenids." Achaemenes built the state Parsumash in the southwest of Iran and was succeeded by Teispes, who took the title "King of Anshan" after seizing the city Anshan and enlarging his kingdom further to include Pars proper. Ancient documents mention that Teispes had a son called Cyrus I, who also succeeded his father as "king of Anshan". Cyrus I had a full brother whose name is recorded as Ariaramnes.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: In 600 BC, Cyrus I was succeeded by his son, Cambyses I, who reigned until 559 BC. Cyrus II "the Great" was a son of Cambyses I, who had named his son after his father, Cyrus I. There are several inscriptions of Cyrus the Great and later kings that refer to Cambyses I as the "great king" and "king of Anshan". Among these are some passages in the Cyrus cylinder where Cyrus calls himself "son of Cambyses, great king, king of Anshan". Another inscription (from CM's) mentions Cambyses I as a "mighty king" and "an Achaemenian", which according to the bulk of scholarly opinion was engraved under Darius and considered as a later forgery by Darius. However Cambyses II's maternal grandfather Pharnaspes is named by historian Herodotus as "an Achaemenian" too. Xenophon's account in Cyropædia further names Cambyses's wife as Mandane and mentions Cambyses as king of Iran (ancient Persia). These agree with Cyrus's own inscriptions, as Anshan and Parsa were different names of the same land. These also agree with other non-Iranian accounts, except at one point from Herodotus stating that Cambyses was not a king but a "Persian of good family". However, in some other passages, Herodotus's account is wrong also on the name of the son of Chishpish, which he mentions as Cambyses but according to modern scholars, should be Cyrus I.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: The traditional view based on archaeological research and the genealogy given in the Behistun Inscription and by Herodotus holds that Cyrus the Great was an Achaemenid. However, M. Waters has suggested that Cyrus is unrelated to the Achaemenids or Darius the Great, and that his family was of Teispid and Anshanite origin instead of Achaemenid.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Cyrus was born to Cambyses I, King of Anshan, and Mandane, daughter of Astyages, King of Media, during the period of 600–599 BC.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: By his own account, generally believed now to be accurate, Cyrus was preceded as king by his father Cambyses I, grandfather Cyrus I, and great-grandfather Teispes. Cyrus married Cassandane who was an Achaemenian and the daughter of Pharnaspes who bore him two sons, Cambyses II and Bardiya along with three daughters, Atossa, Artystone, and Roxane. Cyrus and Cassandane were known to love each other very much – Cassandane said that she found it more bitter to leave Cyrus than to depart her life. After her death, Cyrus insisted on public mourning throughout the kingdom. The Nabonidus Chronicle states that Babylonia mourned Cassandane for six days (identified as 21–26 March 538 BC). After his father's death, Cyrus inherited the Persian throne at Pasargadae, which was a vassal of Astyages. The Greek historian Strabo has said that Cyrus was originally named Agradates by his step-parents. It is possible that, when reuniting with his original family, following the naming customs, Cyrus's father, Cambyses I, named him Cyrus after his grandfather, who was Cyrus I. There is also an account by Strabo that claimed Agradates adopted the name Cyrus after the Cyrus river near Pasargadae.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Herodotus gave a mythological account of Cyrus's early life. In this account, Astyages had two prophetic dreams in which a flood, and then a series of fruit-bearing vines, emerged from his daughter Mandane's pelvis, and covered the entire kingdom. These were interpreted by his advisers as a foretelling that his grandson would one day rebel and supplant him as king. Astyages summoned Mandane, at the time pregnant with Cyrus, back to Ecbatana to have the child killed. General Harpagus delegated the task to Mithradates, one of the shepherds of Astyages, who raised the child and passed off his stillborn son to Harpagus as the dead infant Cyrus. Cyrus lived in secrecy, but when he reached the age of 10, during a childhood game, he had the son of a nobleman beaten when he refused to obey Cyrus's commands. As it was unheard of for the son of a shepherd to commit such an act, Astyages had the boy brought to his court, and interviewed him and his adoptive father. Upon the shepherd's confession, Astyages sent Cyrus back to Persia to live with his biological parents. However, Astyages summoned the son of Harpagus, and in retribution, chopped him to pieces, roasted some portions while boiling others, and tricked his adviser into eating his child during a large banquet. Following the meal, Astyages' servants brought Harpagus the head, hands and feet of his son on platters, so he could realize his inadvertent cannibalism. In another version, Cyrus was presented as the son of a poor family that worked in the Median court.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Cyrus the Great succeeded to the throne in 559 BC following his father's death; however, Cyrus was not yet an independent ruler. Like his predecessors, Cyrus had to recognize Median overlordship. Astyages, last king of the Median Empire and Cyrus' grandfather, may have ruled over the majority of the Ancient Near East, from the Lydian frontier in the west to the Parthians and Persians in the east.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: According to the Nabonidus Chronicle, Astyages launched an attack against Cyrus, "king of Ansan". According to the historian Herodotus, it is known that Astyages placed Harpagus in command of the Median army to conquer Cyrus. However, Harpagus contacted Cyrus and encouraged his revolt against Media, before eventually defecting along with several of the nobility and a portion of the army. This mutiny is confirmed by the Nabonidus Chronicle. The Chronicle suggests that the hostilities lasted for at least three years (553–550), and the final battle resulted in the capture of Ecbatana. This was described in the paragraph that preceded the entry for Nabonidus' year 7, which detailed Cyrus' victory and the capture of his grandfather. According to the historians Herodotus and Ctesias, Cyrus spared the life of Astyages and married his daughter, Amytis. This marriage pacified several vassals, including the Bactrians, Parthians, and Saka. Herodotus notes that Cyrus also subdued and incorporated Sogdia into the empire during his military campaigns of 546–539 BC.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: With Astyages out of power, all of his vassals (including many of Cyrus's relatives) were now under his command. His uncle Arsames, who had been the king of the city-state of Parsa under the Medes, therefore would have had to give up his throne. However, this transfer of power within the family seems to have been smooth, and it is likely that Arsames was still the nominal governor of Parsa under Cyrus's authority—more a Prince or a Grand Duke than a King. His son, Hystaspes, who was also Cyrus's second cousin, was then made satrap of Parthia and Phrygia. Cyrus the Great thus united the twin Achaemenid kingdoms of Parsa and Anshan into Persia proper. Arsames lived to see his grandson become Darius the Great, Shahanshah of Persia, after the deaths of both of Cyrus's sons. Cyrus's conquest of Media was merely the start of his wars.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: The exact dates of the Lydian conquest are unknown, but it must have taken place between Cyrus's overthrow of the Median kingdom (550 BC) and his conquest of Babylon (539 BC). It was common in the past to give 547 BC as the year of the conquest due to some interpretations of the Nabonidus Chronicle, but this position is currently not much held. The Lydians first attacked the Achaemenid Empire's city of Pteria in Cappadocia. Croesus besieged and captured the city enslaving its inhabitants. Meanwhile, the Persians invited the citizens of Ionia who were part of the Lydian kingdom to revolt against their ruler. The offer was rebuffed, and thus Cyrus levied an army and marched against the Lydians, increasing his numbers while passing through nations in his way. The Battle of Pteria was effectively a stalemate, with both sides suffering heavy casualties by nightfall. Croesus retreated to Sardis the following morning.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: While in Sardis, Croesus sent out requests for his allies to send aid to Lydia. However, near the end of the winter, before the allies could unite, Cyrus the Great pushed the war into Lydian territory and besieged Croesus in his capital, Sardis. Shortly before the final Battle of Thymbra between the two rulers, Harpagus advised Cyrus the Great to place his dromedaries in front of his warriors; the Lydian horses, not used to the dromedaries' smell, would be very afraid. The strategy worked; the Lydian cavalry was routed. Cyrus defeated and captured Croesus. Cyrus occupied the capital at Sardis, conquering the Lydian kingdom in 546 BC. According to Herodotus, Cyrus the Great spared Croesus's life and kept him as an advisor, but this account conflicts with some translations of the contemporary Nabonidus Chronicle (the King who was himself subdued by Cyrus the Great after conquest of Babylonia), which interpret that the king of Lydia was slain.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Before returning to the capital, a Lydian named Pactyas was entrusted by Cyrus the Great to send Croesus's treasury to Persia. However, soon after Cyrus's departure, Pactyas hired mercenaries and caused an uprising in Sardis, revolting against the Persian satrap of Lydia, Tabalus. With recommendations from Croesus that he should turn the minds of the Lydian people to luxury, Cyrus sent Mazares, one of his commanders, to subdue the insurrection but demanded that Pactyas be returned alive. Upon Mazares's arrival, Pactyas fled to Ionia, where he had hired more mercenaries. Mazares marched his troops into the Greek country and subdued the cities of Magnesia and Priene. The end of Pactyas is unknown, but after capture, he was probably sent to Cyrus and put to death after a succession of tortures.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Mazares continued the conquest of Asia Minor but died of unknown causes during his campaign in Ionia. Cyrus sent Harpagus to complete Mazares's conquest of Asia Minor. Harpagus captured Lycia, Cilicia and Phoenicia, using the technique of building earthworks to breach the walls of besieged cities, a method unknown to the Greeks. He ended his conquest of the area in 542 BC and returned to Persia.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: By the year 540 BC, Cyrus captured Elam (Susiana) and its capital, Susa. The Nabonidus Chronicle records that, prior to the battle(s), Nabonidus had ordered cult statues from outlying Babylonian cities to be brought into the capital, suggesting that the conflict had begun possibly in the winter of 540 BC. Near the beginning of October 539 BC, Cyrus fought the Battle of Opis in or near the strategic riverside city of Opis on the Tigris, north of Babylon. The Babylonian army was routed, and on 10 October, Sippar was seized without a battle, with little to no resistance from the populace. It is probable that Cyrus engaged in negotiations with the Babylonian generals to obtain a compromise on their part and therefore avoid an armed confrontation. Nabonidus, who had retreated to Sippar following his defeat at Opis, fled to Borsippa.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Two days later, on 12 October (proleptic Gregorian calendar), Gubaru's troops entered Babylon, again without any resistance from the Babylonian armies, and detained Nabonidus. Herodotus explains that to accomplish this feat, the Persians, using a basin dug earlier by the Babylonian queen Nitokris to protect Babylon against Median attacks, diverted the Euphrates river into a canal so that the water level dropped "to the height of the middle of a man's thigh", which allowed the invading forces to march directly through the river bed to enter at night. Shortly thereafter, Nabonidus returned from Borsippa and surrendered to Cyrus. On 29 October, Cyrus himself entered the city of Babylon.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Prior to Cyrus's invasion of Babylon, the Neo-Babylonian Empire had conquered many kingdoms. In addition to Babylonia itself, Cyrus probably incorporated its subnational entities into his Empire, including Syria, Judea, and Arabia Petraea, although there is no direct evidence of this fact.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: After taking Babylon, Cyrus the Great proclaimed himself "king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four corners of the world" in the famous Cyrus Cylinder, an inscription deposited in the foundations of the Esagila temple dedicated to the chief Babylonian god, Marduk. The text of the cylinder denounces Nabonidus as impious and portrays the victorious Cyrus pleasing the god Marduk. It describes how Cyrus had improved the lives of the citizens of Babylonia, repatriated displaced peoples, and restored temples and cult sanctuaries. Although some have asserted that the cylinder represents a form of human rights charter, historians generally portray it in the context of a long-standing Mesopotamian tradition of new rulers beginning their reigns with declarations of reforms.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Cyrus the Great's dominions composed the largest empire the world had ever seen to that point. At the end of Cyrus' rule, the Achaemenid Empire stretched from Asia Minor in the west to the Indus River in the east.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: The details of Cyrus's death vary by account. The account of Herodotus from his "Histories" provides the second-longest detail, in which Cyrus met his fate in a fierce battle with the Massagetae, an Iranian tribal confederation from the southern deserts of Khwarezm and Kyzyl Kum in the southernmost portion of the Eurasian Steppe regions of modern-day Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, following the advice of Croesus to attack them in their own territory. The Massagetae were related to the Scythians in their dress and mode of living; they fought on horseback and on foot. In order to acquire her realm, Cyrus first sent an offer of marriage to their ruler, the empress Tomyris, a proposal she rejected.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: He then commenced his attempt to take Massagetae territory by force (c. 529), beginning by building bridges and towered war boats along his side of the river Oxus, or Amu Darya, which separated them. Sending him a warning to cease his encroachment (a warning which she stated she expected he would disregard anyway), Tomyris challenged him to meet her forces in honorable warfare, inviting him to a location in her country a day's march from the river, where their two armies would formally engage each other. He accepted her offer, but, learning that the Massagetae were unfamiliar with wine and its intoxicating effects, he set up and then left camp with plenty of it behind, taking his best soldiers with him and leaving the least capable ones.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: The general of Tomyris's army, Spargapises, who was also her son, and a third of the Massagetian troops, killed the group Cyrus had left there and, finding the camp well stocked with food and the wine, unwittingly drank themselves into inebriation, diminishing their capability to defend themselves when they were then overtaken by a surprise attack. They were successfully defeated, and, although he was taken prisoner, Spargapises committed suicide once he regained sobriety. Upon learning of what had transpired, Tomyris denounced Cyrus's tactics as underhanded and swore vengeance, leading a second wave of troops into battle herself. Cyrus the Great was ultimately killed, and his forces suffered massive casualties in what Herodotus referred to as the fiercest battle of his career and the ancient world. When it was over, Tomyris ordered the body of Cyrus brought to her, then decapitated him and dipped his head in a vessel of blood in a symbolic gesture of revenge for his bloodlust and the death of her son. However, some scholars question this version, mostly because even Herodotus admits this event was one of many versions of Cyrus's death that he heard from a supposedly reliable source who told him no one was there to see the aftermath.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Herodotus also recounts that Cyrus saw in his sleep the oldest son of Hystaspes (Darius I) with wings upon his shoulders, shadowing with the one wing Asia, and with the other wing Europe. Archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan explains this statement by Herodotus and its connection with the four winged bas-relief figure of Cyrus the Great in the following way:


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Muhammad Dandamayev says that Persians may have taken Cyrus' body back from the Massagetae, unlike what Herodotus claimed.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: According to the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian (AD 1166–1199) Cyrus was killed by his wife Tomyris, queen of the Massagetae (Maksata), in the 60th year of Jewish captivity.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Ctesias, in his "Persica", has the longest account, which says Cyrus met his death while putting down resistance from the Derbices infantry, aided by other Scythian archers and cavalry, plus Indians and their war-elephants. According to him, this event took place northeast of the headwaters of the Syr Darya. An alternative account from Xenophon's "Cyropaedia" contradicts the others, claiming that Cyrus died peacefully at his capital. The final version of Cyrus's death comes from Berossus, who only reports that Cyrus met his death while warring against the Dahae archers northwest of the headwaters of the Syr Darya.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Cyrus the Great's remains may have been interred in his capital city of Pasargadae, where today a limestone tomb (built around 540–530 BC) still exists, which many believe to be his. Strabo and Arrian give nearly identical descriptions of the tomb, based on the eyewitness report of Aristobulus of Cassandreia, who at the request of Alexander the Great visited the tomb twice. Though the city itself is now in ruins, the burial place of Cyrus the Great has remained largely intact, and the tomb has been partially restored to counter its natural deterioration over the centuries. According to Plutarch, his epitaph read:


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Cuneiform evidence from Babylon proves that Cyrus died around December 530 BC, and that his son Cambyses II had become king. Cambyses continued his father's policy of expansion, and captured Egypt for the Empire, but soon died after only seven years of rule. He was succeeded either by Cyrus's other son Bardiya or an impostor posing as Bardiya, who became the sole ruler of Persia for seven months, until he was killed by Darius the Great.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: The translated ancient Roman and Greek accounts give a vivid description of the tomb both geometrically and aesthetically; the tomb's geometric shape has changed little over the years, still maintaining a large stone of quadrangular form at the base, followed by a pyramidal succession of smaller rectangular stones, until after a few slabs, the structure is curtailed by an edifice, with an arched roof composed of a pyramidal shaped stone, and a small opening or window on the side, where the slenderest man could barely squeeze through.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Within this edifice was a golden coffin, resting on a table with golden supports, inside of which the body of Cyrus the Great was interred. Upon his resting place, was a covering of tapestry and drapes made from the best available Babylonian materials, utilizing fine Median worksmanship; below his bed was a fine red carpet, covering the narrow rectangular area of his tomb. Translated Greek accounts describe the tomb as having been placed in the fertile Pasargadae gardens, surrounded by trees and ornamental shrubs, with a group of Achaemenian protectors called the "Magi", stationed nearby to protect the edifice from theft or damage.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Years later, in the chaos created by Alexander the Great's invasion of Persia and after the defeat of Darius III, Cyrus the Great's tomb was broken into and most of its luxuries were looted. When Alexander reached the tomb, he was horrified by the manner in which the tomb was treated, and questioned the Magi and put them to court. On some accounts, Alexander's decision to put the Magi on trial was more about his attempt to undermine their influence and his show of power in his newly conquered empire, than a concern for Cyrus's tomb. However, Alexander admired Cyrus, from an early age reading Xenophon's "Cyropaedia", which described Cyrus's heroism in battle and governance as a king and legislator. Regardless, Alexander the Great ordered Aristobulus to improve the tomb's condition and restore its interior. Despite his admiration for Cyrus the Great, and his attempts at renovation of his tomb, Alexander had, six years previously (330 BC), sacked Persepolis, the opulent city that Cyrus may have chosen the site for, and either ordered its burning as an act of pro-Greek propaganda or set it on fire during drunken revels.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: The edifice has survived the test of time, through invasions, internal divisions, successive empires, regime changes, and revolutions. The last prominent Persian figure to bring attention to the tomb was Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Shah of Iran) the last official monarch of Persia, during his celebrations of 2,500 years of monarchy. Just as Alexander the Great before him, the Shah of Iran wanted to appeal to Cyrus's legacy to legitimize his own rule by extension. The United Nations recognizes the tomb of Cyrus the Great and Pasargadae as a UNESCO World Heritage site.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: British historian Charles Freeman suggests that "In scope and extent his achievements [Cyrus] ranked far above that of the Macedonian king, Alexander, who was to demolish the [Achaemenid] empire in the 320s but fail to provide any stable alternative." Cyrus has been a personal hero to many people, including Thomas Jefferson, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and David Ben-Gurion.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: The achievements of Cyrus the Great throughout antiquity are reflected in the way he is remembered today. His own nation, the Iranians, have regarded him as "The Father," the very title that had been used during the time of Cyrus himself, by the many nations that he conquered, as according to Xenophon:


title: Cyrus the Great

text: The Book of Ezra narrates a story of the first return of exiles in the first year of Cyrus, in which Cyrus proclaims: "All the kingdoms of the earth hath the LORD, the God of heaven, given me; and He hath charged me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah."()


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Cyrus was distinguished equally as a statesman and as a soldier. Due in part to the political infrastructure he created, the Achaemenid Empire endured long after his death.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: The rise of Persia under Cyrus's rule had a profound impact on the course of world history. Iranian philosophy, literature and religion all played dominant roles in world events for the next millennium. Despite the Islamic conquest of Persia in the 7th century AD by the Islamic Caliphate, Persia continued to exercise enormous influence in the Middle East during the Islamic Golden Age, and was particularly instrumental in the growth and expansion of Islam.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Many of the Iranian dynasties following the Achaemenid Empire and their kings saw themselves as the heirs to Cyrus the Great and have claimed to continue the line begun by Cyrus. However, there are different opinions among scholars whether this is also the case for the Sassanid Dynasty.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Alexander the Great was himself infatuated with and admired Cyrus the Great, from an early age reading Xenophon's "Cyropaedia", which described Cyrus's heroism in battle and governance and his abilities as a king and a legislator. During his visit to Pasargadae he ordered Aristobulus to decorate the interior of the sepulchral chamber of Cyrus's tomb.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Cyrus's legacy has been felt even as far away as Iceland and colonial America. Many of the thinkers and rulers of Classical Antiquity as well as the Renaissance and Enlightenment era, and the forefathers of the United States of America sought inspiration from Cyrus the Great through works such as "Cyropaedia". Thomas Jefferson, for example, owned two copies of "Cyropaedia", one with parallel Greek and Latin translations on facing pages showing substantial Jefferson markings that signify the amount of influence the book has had on drafting the United States Declaration of Independence.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: According to Professor Richard Nelson Frye, Cyrus – whose abilities as conqueror and administrator Frye says are attested by the longevity and vigor of the Achaemenid Empire – held an almost mythic role among the Persian people "similar to that of Romulus and Remus in Rome or Moses for the Israelites", with a story that "follows in many details the stories of hero and conquerors from elsewhere in the ancient world." Frye writes, "He became the epitome of the great qualities expected of a ruler in antiquity, and he assumed heroic features as a conqueror who was tolerant and magnanimous as well as brave and daring. His personality as seen by the Greeks influenced them and Alexander the Great, and, as the tradition was transmitted by the Romans, may be considered to influence our thinking even now."


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Though it is generally believed that Zarathushtra's teachings maintained influence on Cyrus's acts and policies, so far no clear evidence has been found to indicate that Cyrus practiced a specific religion. Pierre Briant wrote that given the poor information we have, "it seems quite reckless to try to reconstruct what the religion of Cyrus might have been."


title: Cyrus the Great

text: The policies of Cyrus with respect to treatment of minority religions are documented in Babylonian texts as well as Jewish sources and the historians accounts. Cyrus had a general policy of religious tolerance throughout his vast empire. Whether this was a new policy or the continuation of policies followed by the Babylonians and Assyrians (as Lester Grabbe maintains) is disputed. He brought peace to the Babylonians and is said to have kept his army away from the temples and restored the statues of the Babylonian gods to their sanctuaries.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: His treatment of the Jews during their exile in Babylon after Nebuchadnezzar II destroyed Jerusalem is reported in the Bible. The Jewish Bible's Ketuvim ends in Second Chronicles with the decree of Cyrus, which returned the exiles to the Promised Land from Babylon along with a commission to rebuild the temple.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth hath the , the God of heaven given me; and He hath charged me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whosoever there is among you of all His people – the , his God, be with him – let him go there. — ()


title: Cyrus the Great

text: In the first year of King Cyrus, Cyrus the king issued a decree: "Concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, let the temple, the place where sacrifices are offered, be rebuilt and let its foundations be retained, its height being 60 cubits and its width 60 cubits; with three layers of huge stones and one layer of timbers. And let the cost be paid from the royal treasury. Also let the gold and silver utensils of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, be returned and brought to their places in the temple in Jerusalem; and you shall put them in the house of God." — ()


title: Cyrus the Great

text: The Jews honored him as a dignified and righteous king. In one Biblical passage, Isaiah refers to him as Messiah (lit. "His anointed one") (), making him the only gentile to be so referred. Elsewhere in Isaiah, God is described as saying, "I will raise up Cyrus in my righteousness: I will make all his ways straight. He will rebuild my city and set my exiles free, but not for a price or reward, says God Almighty." () As the text suggests, Cyrus did ultimately release the nation of Israel from its exile without compensation or tribute. These particular passages (Isaiah 40–55, often referred to as "Deutero-Isaiah") are believed by most modern critical scholars to have been added by another author toward the end of the Babylonian exile


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, relates the traditional view of the Jews regarding the prediction of Cyrus in Isaiah in his Antiquities of the Jews, book 11, chapter 1:


title: Cyrus the Great

text: While Cyrus was praised in the Tanakh ( and ), there was Jewish criticism of him after he was lied to by the Cuthites, who wanted to halt the building of the Second Temple. They accused the Jews of conspiring to rebel, so Cyrus in turn stopped the construction, which would not be completed until 515 BC, during the reign of Darius I.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: According to the Bible it was King Artaxerxes who was convinced to stop the construction of the temple in Jerusalem. (Ezra 4:7–24)


title: Cyrus the Great

text: The historical nature of this decree has been challenged. Professor Lester L Grabbe argues that there was no decree but that there was a policy that allowed exiles to return to their homelands and rebuild their temples. He also argues that the archaeology suggests that the return was a "trickle", taking place over perhaps decades, resulting in a maximum population of perhaps 30,000. Philip R. Davies called the authenticity of the decree "dubious", citing Grabbe and adding that arguing against "the authenticity of Ezra 1.1–4 is J. Briend, in a paper given at the Institut Catholique de Paris on 15 December 1993, who denies that it resembles the form of an official document but reflects rather biblical prophetic idiom."


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Mary Joan Winn Leith believes that the decree in Ezra might be authentic and along with the Cylinder that Cyrus, like earlier rulers, was through these decrees trying to gain support from those who might be strategically important, particularly those close to Egypt which he wished to conquer. He also wrote that "appeals to Marduk in the cylinder and to Yahweh in the biblical decree demonstrate the Persian tendency to co-opt local religious and political traditions in the interest of imperial control."


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Some modern Muslims have suggested that the Quranic figure of Dhu al-Qarnayn is a representation of Cyrus the Great, but the scholarly consensus is that he is a development of legends concerning Alexander the Great.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Cyrus founded the empire as a multi-state empire governed by four capital states; Pasargadae, Babylon, Susa and Ecbatana. He allowed a certain amount of regional autonomy in each state, in the form of a satrapy system. A satrapy was an administrative unit, usually organized on a geographical basis. A 'satrap' (governor) was the vassal king, who administered the region, a 'general' supervised military recruitment and ensured order, and a 'state secretary' kept the official records. The general and the state secretary reported directly to the satrap as well as the central government.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: During his reign, Cyrus maintained control over a vast region of conquered kingdoms, achieved through retaining and expanding the satrapies. Further organization of newly conquered territories into provinces ruled by satraps, was continued by Cyrus's successor Darius the Great. Cyrus's empire was based on tribute and conscripts from the many parts of his realm.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Through his military savvy, Cyrus created an organized army including the Immortals unit, consisting of 10,000 highly trained soldiers. He also formed an innovative postal system throughout the empire, based on several relay stations called Chapar Khaneh.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Cyrus's conquests began a new era in the age of empire building, where a vast superstate, comprising many dozens of countries, races, religions, and languages, were ruled under a single administration headed by a central government. This system lasted for centuries, and was retained both by the invading Seleucid dynasty during their control of Persia, and later Iranian dynasties including the Parthians and Sasanians.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Cyrus has been known for his innovations in building projects; he further developed the technologies that he found in the conquered cultures and applied them in building the palaces of Pasargadae. He was also famous for his love of gardens; the recent excavations in his capital city has revealed the existence of the Pasargadae Persian Garden and a network of irrigation canals. Pasargadae was a place for two magnificent palaces surrounded by a majestic royal park and vast formal gardens; among them was the four-quartered wall gardens of "Paradisia" with over 1000 meters of channels made out of carved limestone, designed to fill small basins at every 16 meters and water various types of wild and domestic flora. The design and concept of Paradisia were exceptional and have been used as a model for many ancient and modern parks, ever since.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: The English physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne penned a discourse entitled The Garden of Cyrus in 1658 in which Cyrus is depicted as an archetypal "wise ruler" – while the Protectorate of Cromwell ruled Britain.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: "Cyrus the elder brought up in Woods and Mountains, when time and power enabled, pursued the dictate of his education, and brought the treasures of the field into rule and circumscription. So nobly beautifying the hanging Gardens of Babylon, that he was also thought to be the author thereof."


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Cyrus' standard, described as a golden eagle mounted upon a "lofty shaft", remained the official banner of the Achaemenids.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: One of the few surviving sources of information that can be dated directly to Cyrus's time is the Cyrus Cylinder (), a document in the form of a clay cylinder inscribed in Akkadian cuneiform. It had been placed in the foundations of the Esagila (the temple of Marduk in Babylon) as a foundation deposit following the Persian conquest in 539 BC. It was discovered in 1879 and is kept today in the British Museum in London.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: The text of the cylinder denounces the deposed Babylonian king Nabonidus as impious and portrays Cyrus as pleasing to the chief god Marduk. It describes how Cyrus had improved the lives of the citizens of Babylonia, repatriated displaced peoples and restored temples and cult sanctuaries. Although not mentioned specifically in the text, the repatriation of the Jews from their "Babylonian captivity" has been interpreted as part of this general policy.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: In the 1970s the Shah of Iran adopted the Cyrus cylinder as a political symbol, using it "as a central image in his celebration of 2500 years of Iranian monarchy". and asserting that it was "the first human rights charter in history". This view has been disputed by some as "rather anachronistic" and tendentious, as the modern concept of human rights would have been quite alien to Cyrus's contemporaries and is not mentioned by the cylinder. The cylinder has, nonetheless, become seen as part of Iran's cultural identity.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: The United Nations has declared the relic to be an "ancient declaration of human rights" since 1971, approved by then Secretary General Sithu U Thant, after he "was given a replica by the sister of the Shah of Iran". The British Museum describes the cylinder as "an instrument of ancient Mesopotamian propaganda" that "reflects a long tradition in Mesopotamia where, from as early as the third millennium BC, kings began their reigns with declarations of reforms." The cylinder emphasizes Cyrus's continuity with previous Babylonian rulers, asserting his virtue as a traditional Babylonian king while denigrating his predecessor.


title: Cyrus the Great

text: Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, has stated that the cylinder was "the first attempt we know about running a society, a state with different nationalities and faiths – a new kind of statecraft." He explained that "It has even been described as the first declaration of human rights, and while this was never the intention of the document – the modern concept of human rights scarcely existed in the ancient world – it has come to embody the hopes and aspirations of many."


title: Cyrus the Great

text: His regal titles in full were The Great King, King of Persia, King of Anshan, King of Media, King of Babylon, King of Sumer and Akkad, and King of the Four Corners of the World. The Nabonidus Chronicle notes the change in his title from "King of Anshan" to "King of Persia". Assyriologist François Vallat wrote that "When Astyages marched against Cyrus, Cyrus is called 'King of Anshan", but when Cyrus crosses the Tigris on his way to Lydia, he is 'King of Persia.' The coup therefore took place between these two events."


title: Johan Cruyff

text: Hendrik Johannes Cruijff (, internationally known as Johan Cruyff; 25 April 1947 – 24 March 2016) was a Dutch professional football player and manager. As a player, he won the Ballon d'Or three times, in 1971, 1973 and 1974. Cruyff was a proponent of the football philosophy known as Total Football explored by Rinus Michels. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport and one of the most influential figures in modern football, as well as one of its best managers ever.


title: Johan Cruyff

text: In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dutch football rose from a semi-professional and obscure level to become a powerhouse in the sport. Cruyff led the Netherlands to the final of the 1974 FIFA World Cup and received the Golden Ball as player of the tournament. After finishing third in UEFA Euro 1976, Cruyff refused to play in the 1978 FIFA World Cup after a kidnapping attempt targeting him and his family in their Barcelona home dissuaded him from football. At club level, Cruyff started his career at Ajax, where he won eight Eredivisie titles, three European Cups and one Intercontinental Cup. In 1973, he moved to Barcelona for a world record transfer fee, helping the team win La Liga in his first season and winning the Ballon d'Or. After retiring from playing in 1984, Cruyff became highly successful as manager of Ajax and later Barcelona; he remained an influential advisor to both clubs after his coaching tenures. His son Jordi also played football professionally for Barcelona.


title: Johan Cruyff

text: In 1999, Cruyff was voted European Player of the Century in an election held by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics, and came second behind Pelé in their World Player of the Century poll. He came third in a vote organised by the French magazine "France Football" consulting their former Ballon d'Or winners to elect their Football Player of the Century. He was included in the World Team of the 20th Century in 1998, the FIFA World Cup Dream Team in 2002, and in 2004 was named in the FIFA 100 list of the world's greatest living players.


title: Johan Cruyff

text: Hendrik Johannes "Johan" Cruyff was born on 25 April 1947 in the Burgerziekenhuis hospital in Amsterdam. He grew up on a street five minutes away from Ajax's stadium, his first football club. Johan was the second son of Hermanus Cornelis Cruijff and Petronella Bernarda Draaijer, from a humble, working-class background in east Amsterdam. Cruyff, encouraged by his influential football-loving father and his close proximity in Akkerstraat Stadium, played football with his schoolmates and older brother, Henny, whenever he could, and idolised the prolific Dutch dribbler, Faas Wilkes.


title: Johan Cruyff

text: In 1959, Cruyff's father died from a heart attack. His father's death had a major impact on his mentality. As Cruyff recalled, in celebration of his 50th birthday, "My father died when I was just 12 and he was 45. From that day the feeling crept stronger over me that I would die at the same age and, when I had serious heart problems when I reached 45, I thought: 'This is it.' Only medical science, which was not available to help my father, kept me alive." Viewing a potential football career as a way of paying tribute to his father, the death inspired the strong-willed Cruyff, who also frequently visited the burial site at Oosterbegraafplaats. His mother began working at Ajax as a cleaner, deciding that she could no longer carry on at the grocer without her husband, and in the future, this made Cruyff near-obsessed with financial security but also gave him an appreciation for player aids. His mother soon met her second husband, Henk Angel, a field hand at Ajax who proved a key influence in Cruyff's life.


title: Johan Cruyff

text: Cruyff joined the Ajax youth system on his tenth birthday. Cruyff and his friends would frequently visit a "playground" in their neighbourhood and Ajax youth coach Jany van der Veen, who lived close by, noticed Cruyff's talent and decided to offer him a place at Ajax without a formal trial. When he first joined Ajax, Cruyff preferred baseball and continued to play the sport until age fifteen when he quit at the urging of his coaches.