Daniel

Daniel is a masculine given name and a surname of Hebrew origin. It means, "God is my judge", and derives from two early biblical figures, primary among them Daniel from the Book of Daniel. It is a common given name for males, and is also used as a surname. It is also the basis for various derived given names and surnames.

Background

The name evolved into over 100 different spellings in countries around the world. Nicknames (Dan, Danny) are common in both English and Hebrew, although in some instances "Dan" may be a complete given name rather than a nickname. The name "Daniil" (Даниил) is common in Russia. Feminine versions (Danielle, Daniela, Daniella, Dani, Danitza) are prevalent as well. The Dutch names "Daan" and "Daniël" are also variations of Daniel. A related surname developed as a patronymic, Daniels. Other surnames derived from "Daniel" include McDaniel and Danielson.

In the United States, the U.S. Social Security Administration reports that Daniel has peaked as the fifth most popular name for newborns in 1985, 1990, 2007, and 2008. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that in the 2000 census, "Daniels" was the 182nd most common surname in the U.S., while "McDaniel" was ranked at 323, and "Daniel" (without a final "s") was ranked at 380.

Space Shuttle

The Space Shuttle was a partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS), taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft of which it was the only item funded for development. The first of four orbital test flights occurred in 1981, leading to operational flights beginning in 1982. They were used on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011, launched from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. Operational missions launched numerous satellites, interplanetary probes, and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST); conducted science experiments in orbit; and participated in construction and servicing of the International Space Station. The Shuttle fleet's total mission time was 1322 days, 19 hours, 21 minutes and 23 seconds.

Shuttle components included the Orbiter Vehicle (OV), a pair of recoverable solid rocket boosters (SRBs), and the expendable external tank (ET) containing liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The Shuttle was launched vertically, like a conventional rocket, with the two SRBs operating in parallel with the OV's three main engines, which were fueled from the ET. The SRBs were jettisoned before the vehicle reached orbit, and the ET was jettisoned just before orbit insertion, which used the orbiter's two Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) engines. At the conclusion of the mission, the orbiter fired its OMS to de-orbit and re-enter the atmosphere. The orbiter then glided as a spaceplane to a runway landing, usually at the Shuttle Landing Facility of KSC or Rogers Dry Lake in Edwards Air Force Base, California. After landing at Edwards, the orbiter was flown back to the KSC on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, a specially modified Boeing 747.

Wie schön du bist

"Wie schön du bist" (German: How Beautiful You Are) is a song by German recording artist Sarah Connor. It was written and produced by Connor along with Peter Plate, Ulf Leo Sommer, and Daniel Faust for her ninth studio album Muttersprache (2015). An ode to her son Tyler, the uplifiting pop ballad was conceived after a dispute with him. Her first single in German, the song was released as the album's lead single on May 1, 2015 in German-speaking Europe; it has since reached number two on the German Singles Chart.

Chart performance

In Germany, "Wie schön du bist" was certified gold by the Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BVMI), denoting sales/streams of 260,000 copies, including 240,000 digital downloads.

Formats and track listings

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Parody

In September 2015, German comedian Carolin Kebekus performed a parody of this song in her show PussyTerror TV, mocking dim-witted German nationalists under the title "Wie blöd du bist" (German: How Daft You Are).

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia (ⁱ/ˌsɔːdiː əˈreɪbiə/, ⁱ/ˌsaʊ-/), officially known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is an Arab state in Western Asia constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula. With a land area of approximately 2,150,000 km² (830,000 sq mi), Saudi Arabia is geographically the second-largest state in the Arab world after Algeria. Saudi Arabia is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast, and Yemen to the south. It is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast, and most of its terrain consists of arid inhospitable desert or barren landforms.

The area of modern-day Saudi Arabia formerly consisted of four distinct regions: Hejaz, Najd, and parts of Eastern Arabia (Al-Ahsa) and Southern Arabia ('Asir). The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud. He united the four regions into a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud. The country has since been an absolute monarchy, effectively a hereditary dictatorship governed along Islamic lines. The ultra-conservative Wahhabism religious movement within Sunni Islam has been called "the predominant feature of Saudi culture", with its global spreading largely financed by the oil and gas trade. Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "the Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca), and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (in Medina), the two holiest places in Islam. The Kingdom has a total population of 28.7 million, of which 20 million are Saudi nationals and 8 million are foreigners.

Adel Tawil

Adel Tawil (born August 15, 1978 in Berlin, Germany), is a German singer, songwriter and producer. Besides his solo career, he is part of the popular German pop duo Ich + Ich, after being part earlier of the German boy band The Boyz.

Family background

Tawil was born in Germany. His father, Salah Tawil, is Egyptian and his mother, Fatima Tawil, is Tunisian. Tawil is the first born of three, having a younger brother, Hatem, and sister, Rascha.

In 2011 he married his long-time girlfriend Jasmin Weber in a private ceremony in Berlin.

Music career

During the end of the 1990s, Tawil was part of the German boyband The Boyz. Since 2004, he and Annette Humpe formed the duo known as Ich + Ich. They have released three albums, Ich + Ich (2005), Vom Selben Stern (2007) and Gute Reise (2009).

In 2007, Tawil teamed up with rapper Azad and released the song "Prison Break Anthem (Ich glaub' an dich)", which is the opening theme for the German version of Prison Break. Tawil has made another solo appearance with Tobias Schenke for the song "Niemand hat Gesagt".