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Summary: A slow week, dominated by pop culture, previous entries, Google Doodles and Reddit threads. The popularity of Iron Man 3 and The Great Gatsby augur well for future reports, when their movies are finally, fully released.
For the week of April 21 to 27, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:
Rank | Last | Wks | Article | Views | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | – | – | Ella Fitzgerald | 1,902,708 | The First Lady of Song, the Queen of Jazz; she of the 3-octave range and 13 Grammy wins, received a Google Doodle in honour of what would have been her 96th birthday on April 25. |
2 | – | – | Iron Man 3 | 652,309 | As per usual in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the third installment in the Iron Man series was released internationally a week early, triggering interest before its release in its home country on May 3. |
3 | 9 | 8 | Game of Thrones | 543,047 | This epic fantasy TV series launched its third season on March 31, and has seen its ratings almost double on its premiere episode. |
4 | - | - | Munich massacre | 503,257 | An attack during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany on the Israeli Olympic team by the Palestinian group Black September. Underwent a massive spike in views on April 25, after a 4-0 victory by Bayern Munich over Barcelona FC was referred to in the press as a "Munich massacre". |
5 | 10 | 16 | 488,397 | A perennially popular article. | |
6 | - | - | Hemlock Grove (TV series) | 474,142 | Produced by schlockmeister Eli Roth, who also directed the pilot, this predictably gory werewolf series, based on a novel, was released in its entirety via Netflix on April 19. |
7 | 7 | 2 | Oblivion (2013 film) | 466,461 | Despite narrowly losing the weekend top spot to Michael Bay's sociopathon Pain & Gain, this Tom Cruise star vehicle still handlily beat it in the Wikipedia stakes, garnering more than twice its views. |
8 | 11 | 26 | Deaths in 2013 | 426,855 | The lists of deaths in the current year is always a quite popular article. |
9 | - | - | Socotra | 407,165 | This biodiversity hotspot in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Yemen received a massive amount of attention thanks to a TIL (Today I Learned) thread on Reddit. |
10 | - | - | George Jones | 404,786 | Country music singer and onetime Mr. Tammy Wynette who died on April 26 |
11 | - | - | The Great Gatsby | 401,638 | This perennial contender for the Great American Novel and eternal junior high school assignment got a lot of attention this week, most likely from users looking for the upcoming Baz Luhrmann film. |
12 | 17 | 8 | 401,002 | A perennially popular article | |
13 | 20 | 28 | World War II | 380,743 | Another perennially popular article. (The 16th most popular article from 2010–12, in fact, see Table 2 here.) |
14 | 19 | 2 | Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act | 376,926 | Otherwise known as CISPA, this hugely controversial act passed the US Congress with little comment from the media, despite its potentially dramatic impact on personal privacy. Thankfully beaten in the Senate. |
15 | – | – | Arsenal F.C. | 371,419 | The world's fourth-richest football club came to notice with a 1-0 victory against Fulham, and an impending match against Manchester United (which they held to a 1-1 draw). |
16 | - | - | Earth Day | 365,612 | Despite a Google Doodle, this ecologically-minded April 22 celebration scored little over half the views of last week's similar 4/20 Day. I guess smoking pot is easier to countenance than saving the world. |
17 | 1 | 2 | Chechnya | 361,449 | This ruined Russian republic became destination #1 for Wikipedia users when it was revealed to be Boston bombings suspects' ethnic homeland, and remains a popular topic a week after. |
18 | 16 | 2 | Daft Punk | 357,847 | This robot-helmet-wearing, cyberpunk-infused electronic music duo released their long-awaited new single "Get Lucky." |
19 | 21 | 3 | Game of Thrones (season 3) | 351,362 | see #3 above |
20 | - | 28 | YouTube | 351,135 | Another perennially popular article |
21 | 3 | 2 | Boston Marathon bombings | 348,429 | Unsurprisingly still popular a week after the fact. |
22 | - | 2 | List of Game of Thrones episodes | 337,118 | see #3 above |
23 | 5 | 2 | 420 (cannabis culture) | 323,110 | 4/20 Day still hanging in the air the following week. |
24 | – | - | Aashiqui 2 | 320,848 | Bollywood blockbusters like this occasionally score highly enough with Indian diaspora to register on English Wikipedia |
25 | - | - | Edith Macefield | 318,947 | Another Reddit TIL, this woman who fought a housing development for the right to continue to live in her house received sympathy from Wikipedia users. |
Specific removals this week (those articles for which no reason for any sudden popularity could be located):