From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (April 12 to 18, 2020)

Prepared with comentary by Berrely, Rebestalic and igordebraga

⭠ Last week's report

Next week's report ⭢

On this week's menu: Fresh but getting-stale 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic news, as well as Netflix gems nestled in occasionally--for the spices, how about post-September 11-attack terrorists and Who Wants to be a Millionaire? cheaters. Cool!

(data provided by the provisory Top 1000)

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes/about
1 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic 3,255,130 Believe it or not, it's been about 191/2 (137 days) since the reported cases of COVID-19 emerged in Wuhan. As of the 23 April, there are approx. 2.7 million cases! The number already was and has now become even more frightening. To give you an idea, here is a website showing dots. And that only goes up to 1 million! Sadly, we still haven't been able to flatten the curve, but in a lot of countries, the curve is slowly starting to decline!
2 Joe Exotic 1,285,515
Tiger King, burning bright, on the flatscreens of the night, as viewers on said docuseries are still numerous to boost views on its primary subject, this weirdo who along with operating a big cat private zoo also indulged in rapping, politics and attempted murder.
3 Charles Ingram 1,260,050
This man was already well known by cheating on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? to win the top rise using a clever series of coughs. There has been a lot of attention on him currently following the release of ITV show Quiz. The show is based on the award winning play of the same name, following Ingram's earlier life.
4 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United States 1,200,164
The US currently has the most coronavirus cases in the world; so it's hardly surprising where this article is on the list. Once of the worst hit areas is the city of Detroit, with over 8000 cases, not known for being the richest of cities in the USA.
5 Deaths in 2020 1,118,629
Lay me down
Let the only sound
Be the overflow
6 2020 coronavirus pandemic in India 1,108,561 Unfortunately for India, the population of Indians who have been infected with SARS-CoV2 is starting to balloon towards the 20K mark--now, that may not seem that much compared to the US's almost 900 thousand, but that's still a lot. Thank goodness for the lockdown that's currently in force--it has been predicted that if the current lockdown never happened, the amount of Indian COVID-19 cases could have been in excess of 30 thousand.
7 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic by country and territory 1,077,954 Almost all of the world's countries and territories have experienced some case of COVID-19 within their borders--this thing isn't called a pandemic for nothing. In total, over two million people have been infected by SARS-CoV-2.
8 Money Heist 1,071,411 Money Heist, known in its native Spanish as La Casa de Papel (the House of Paper - i.e. paper money, printed in places like the Royal Spanish Mint to the left), is a Spanish crime drama concerning a Professor and his collaborators. It is the most-watched non-English language series to date and also quite an awarded one, having won a mammoth sixteen awards at time of writing.
9 Brian Dennehy 1,057,388 Brian Dennehy was an American actor, appearing on the stage, on air and in movies. You might know him as the father of Romeo in Romeo + Juliet as well as a mainstay at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. In his lifetime of 81 years, he won two Tony Awards (an award for stage acting in the US), an Olivier Award (likewise but in British contexts) and a Golden Globe (film acting). Dennehy passed away of Cardiac arrest caused by a certain way that the immune system responds to germs that ends up damaging the body itself.
10 Carole Baskin 999,748
As you can see, Big Cat Rescue owner Carole Baskin amassed a cool 999 thousand (rounded down of course) views this week. This is because our #2 tried to kill her (the culmination of a feud that included Joe Exotic accusing Baskin of murdering her disappeared husband, and Baskin winning a trademark infringement lawsuit because Exotic, out of spite, decided to copy the branding of her sanctuary in the website of his tiger zoo). Initially aiming for the veterinary medicine industry, Baskin decided otherwise due to her finding out that vets kill animals every now and then. Her life then gets a little complicated for a summary like what I'm writing here--so for more details, please do go ahead and click the link supplied (because it's there for a reason).
11 Spanish flu 908,332
After a long gap, the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic trend edges in a placing at #13. This time, the article in question is, of course, the Spanish Flu; this was a pandemic that occurred just above a century ago involving the H1N1 subtype of influenza (which comes from pigs. That's why you might see it referred to as 'Swine flu'). Compared to the Spanish flu's scope, the current pandemic is tiny; not to be callous to all those who have been infected, but the number of confirmed coronavirus cases is still a small 250th of the estimated 500 million cases of Spanish Flu.
12 Coronavirus 882,219 The word 'Coronavirus', to the best of my knowledge, simply means any virus which has outward-pointing spikes called peplomers that give an appearance of a crown or a halo surrounding the virus (by the way, 'Corona' means 'Crown' in Latin). Coronaviruses can infect any animal belonging to the Mammal and Bird classes of animals--that's quite a lot of animals we've just included there. So, to put it into perspective, that could be anything from (unfortunately) people like Tom Hanks and wife Rita Wilson to the blue jay that might be squawking over your garden next morning.
13 The Clark Sisters 839,467 This gospel group consists of five sisters, Jacky, Denise, Twinkie, Dorinda and Karen (who is pictured on the left). The best-selling female gospel group in history, the five sisters Clark have earnt for themselves three Grammys. It just happens that their achievements were honoured recently in the Lifetime biopic The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel.
14 Ozark (TV series) 810,790 Ozark is the story of a married couple's money laundering plan gone wrong. As for the word 'Ozark' in itself, that's a reference to the Ozarks, which is a high-altitude slice of terrain situated in the land occupied by Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma. So far, the TV series (which is unsurprisingly based on Netflix) has raked in fourteen Primetime Emmy Awards.
15 Coronavirus disease 2019 759,010 Some world leaders were at first dismissive of the strong respiratory disease currently causing panic worldwide (#1 et al), such as the guy at #23 and one of his biggest fans, who outright called COVID-19 as "some small flu". Although the second one might still be underestimating the pandemic even as the confirmed deaths in his country have broken 3,000.
16 Andrea Bocelli 699,762 Andrea Bocelli is an Italian singer. He's the guy who did a duo with Ed Sheeran in " Perfect"; and in more recent times, he jammed a bit with organist Emanuele Vianelli in an empty Milan Cathedral last Easter Sunday. That video happens to be on YouTube, and here it is. As a matter of fact, it's currently #13 on Trending!
17 Remdesivir 609,492 Remdesivir is an antiviral (that is to say, it's made to kill viruses) medication made by California-based Gilead Sciences. Touted by American President Donald Trump as a viable way to beat SARS-CoV2, it unfortunately recently (a few days ago) proved itself unable to do the job.
18 Anthony Fauci 580,700 A descendant of Italians, Anthony Stephen Fauci was born in Brooklyn and went on to captain his high school's basketball team during youth. He soon inevitably went on to start a career in medicine; in 1984, he assumed the directorship of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a position which he still holds (!). More recently, Fauci has been a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
19 List of Money Heist episodes 570,239 The content of Money Heist is to date constituted by two seasons, which are collectively made up of four parts, of which among them have 31 episodes of anywhere between 40 to 77 minutes.
20 Andrew Cuomo 566,563 Every US state has a leader, and when a US state has been put under peril by the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic (#1), there is also a leader to help guide the state through. Andrew Cuomo is the man we're talking about. Cuomo has been the Governor of New York since 2011, and part of a family that includes lawyer and father and former NY governor Mario, CNN journalist Chris and radiologist Margaret. Even guys like Andrew Cuomo have had it rough before--his article tells me that sometime around 1982, his yearly salary was-- wait for it--one dollar. Yearly.
21 Shiva Ayyadurai 539,828 Shiva Ayyadurai, perhaps known for being a claimant to the invention of Email, is an Indian-American scientist. He has apparently also spread misinformation related to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, claiming that SARS-CoV2 was made by British place of higher learning Pirbright Institute.
22 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Italy 539,692 Unfortunately, it looks like Italy's epidemic curve is a low one. But it is going down. The best is coming.
23 Donald Trump 490,673 Honestly, there's no summary of Donald Trump's life better than the leading sentence of his article:

'Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is the 45th and current president of the United States. Before entering politics, he was a businessman and television personality.'
24 Easter 487,029
April Fool's couldn't make it onto the report in a week where people were too numb to prank or be pranked. But the holiday about Jesus's resurrection still has it.
25 Tiger King 477,631
Closing off the list, the Netflix series that revealed #2's weird world (and a few other people involved with the big cat business, many of whom are quirky as well).