Wikipedia:2009 Top 50 Report
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Annual Top 50[edit]
Based on the Most read articles list, and prepared with commentary by:
Commentary
Rank Article Class Views Image About 1 The Beatles 
41,383,700 
The Fab Four were the most viewed article this year, coincidentally beating The King of Pop (#2), who had purchased the publishing rights to the Beatles' catalogue in 1985 and covered one of their hits. Their high view count was likely as a result of the box sets of stereo and mono remastered recordings by the group, as well as the Rock Band video game, which were released this year. Both sets were issued on 9 September 2009 (9/9/09), a number all too familiar with the Beatles and John Lennon as a whole. 2 Michael Jackson
35,842,210 
"If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and make a change." 2009 saw the shocking and untimely death of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, just months after he announced a series of comeback concerts. Over a four-decade career, his contributions to music, dance, and fashion, along with his publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture. Jackson influenced artists across many music genres; through stage and video performances, he popularized complicated dance moves such as the moonwalk, to which he gave the name, as well as the robot. He is the most awarded individual music artist in history.
Jackson made his professional debut in 1964 with his older brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon as a member of the Jackson 5 (#46, later known as the Jacksons). Jackson began his solo career in 1971 while at Motown Records. He became a solo star with his 1979 album Off the Wall. His music videos, including those for "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Thriller" from his 1982 album Thriller, are credited with breaking racial barriers and transforming the medium into an artform and promotional tool. He helped propel the success of MTV and continued to innovate with videos for the albums Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991), and HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I (1995). Thriller became the best-selling album of all time (a position it retains to this day), while Bad was the first album to produce five U.S. Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles.
From the late 1980s to the early 2000s, Jackson became a figure of controversy and speculation due to his changing appearance, relationships, behavior, and lifestyle. In 1993, he was accused of sexually abusing the child of a family friend. The lawsuit was settled out of civil court; Jackson was not indicted due to lack of evidence. In 2005, he was tried and acquitted of further child sexual abuse allegations and several other charges. The FBI found no evidence of criminal conduct on Jackson's behalf in either case. Jackson's last album, Invincible, was released in 2001.
At the time of his death, Jackson had been preparing for a series of comeback concerts, This Is It, which were due to begin in July 2009 in London. He died of acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication on 25 June 2009. Jackson's death triggered reactions around the world, creating unprecedented surges of Internet traffic and a spike in sales of his music. Jackson's hospitalization and death on Thursday, June 25 was immediately picked up by news sources and widely broadcast through online social networks, which in turn caused a vast number of people to turn to the Wikipedia article on Jackson. According to the Wikimedia Techblog, the number of people checking the Jackson article caused a load spike that briefly took Wikipedia offline. Developer and member of the Board of Trustees Domas Mituzas described what happened.
This story was in turn picked up by CNN, which also discussed the effects of Jackson's death on other major websites: Twitter and Google News also reported problems. Noam Cohen of The New York Times also reported on the traffic to Wikipedia in the wake of Jackson's death, with nearly a million visitors to the article in the space of an hour, which Jay Walsh of the Foundation said may be the "most in a one-hour period of any article in Wikipedia history." A televised memorial service, held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, was viewed by an estimated 2.5 billion people globally.
3 Favicon.ico 
31,240,350 image commentary 4 YouTube
25,644,900 
The online video sharing platform is a consistently popular article, and as such frequently features on the Top 25 Report. 5 Deaths in 2009
19,792,590 
Lots of famous faces died this year, including #2. 6 United States
16,709,700 image commentary 7 Facebook
15,027,050 image commentary 8 Barack Obama
14,052,500 
The newly elected President was inaugurated this January. His accomplishments during the first 100 days included signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 relaxing the statute of limitations for equal-pay lawsuits; signing into law the expanded State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP); winning approval of a congressional budget resolution that put Congress on record as dedicated to dealing with major health care reform legislation in 2009; implementing new ethics guidelines designed to significantly curtail the influence of lobbyists on the executive branch; breaking from the Bush administration on a number of policy fronts, except for Iraq, in which he followed through on Bush's Iraq withdrawal of U.S. troops; supporting the UN declaration on sexual orientation and gender identity; and lifting the 7½-year ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. He also ordered the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. Obama lifted some travel and money restrictions to the island. At the end of the first 100 days, 65% of Americans approved of how Obama was doing and 29% disapproved. According to Gallup's First quarter survey in April, President Obama received a 63% approval rating. Gallup began tracking presidential approval ratings of the first quarters since Dwight Eisenhower in 1953. President John F. Kennedy received the highest in April 1961 with a 74% rating. Obama's 63% is the fourth highest and the highest since President Jimmy Carter with a 69%. President Ronald Reagan's first quarter had 60% approval in 1981, President George H. W. Bush with 57% in 1989, President Bill Clinton with 55% in 1993, and President George W. Bush with 58% in 2001.
9 Lil Wayne
12,161,800 image commentary 10 2009 swine flu pandemic
11,187,250 
The swine flu began to spread worldwide this year, becoming a pandemic. This is the third recent flu pandemic involving the H1N1 virus (the first being the 1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic and the second being the 1977 Russian flu). The first two cases were discovered independently in the United States in April 2009. The virus appears to be a new strain of H1N1 that resulted from a previous triple reassortment of bird, swine, and human flu viruses which further combined with a Eurasian pig flu virus, leading to the term "swine flu". U.S. President Barack Obama (#8) is pictured here receiving the vaccine. 11 Eminem
10,951,825 
The Real Slim Shady returned to the music industry this year with the release of Relapse. 12 Lady Gaga
10,867,145 image commentary 13 Miley Cyrus
10,410,895 image commentary 14 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
10,067,690 image commentary 15 Avatar (2009 film)
10,015,600 image commentary 16 World War II
9,741,850 image commentary 17 Lost (TV series)
9,289,250 image commentary 18 Megan Fox
9,271,000 image commentary 19 Adolf Hitler
9,245,450 image commentary 20 India
9,044,700 image commentary 21 Taylor Swift
9,037,400 
The Nashville country singer began touring this year in support of her second album Fearless, which was released last year. Its third single, "You Belong with Me", was released this April and became the first country song to reach number one on both Hot Country Songs and the all-genre Radio Songs chart. At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, where "You Belong with Me" won Best Female Video, Chicago rapper Kanye West interrupted Swift's acceptance speech, which caused a controversy widely covered by the media. 22 United Kingdom
9,004,550 image commentary 23 2012
8,887,750 image commentary 24 Windows 7
8,624,950 image commentary 25 Harry Potter
8,457,050 image commentary 26 True Blood
7,927,800 image commentary 27 Twitter
7,847,500 image commentary 28 Heroes (TV series)
7,807,350 image commentary 29 Canada
7,800,050 image commentary 30 List of House episodes 
7,791,655 image commentary 31 Naruto
7,756,250 image commentary 32 Rihanna
7,705,150 image commentary 33 Family Guy
7,649,670 image commentary 34 Scrubs (TV series)
7,584,700 image commentary 35 World War I
7,551,850 image commentary 36 Japan
7,449,650 image commentary 37 Beyoncé
7,446,000 image commentary 38 Kristen Stewart
7,422,275 image commentary 39 Australia
7,398,550 image commentary 40 House (TV series)
7,329,200 image commentary 41 Internet Movie Database
7,259,850 image commentary 42 Robert Pattinson
7,073,700 image commentary 43 Watchmen
7,066,400 image commentary 44 Selena Gomez
6,945,950 image commentary 45 Jay-Z
6,920,400 image commentary 46 The Jackson 5
6,916,750 
The American pop band composed of members of the Jackson family, including #2, who was the group's lead singer. Among their hits include "I Want You Back", "ABC", "The Love You Save", "I'll Be There", "Enjoy Yourself", "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)", and "Can You Feel It". 47 The Twilight Saga: New Moon
6,847,400 image commentary 48 2009 in film
6,741,550 image commentary 49 Twilight (2008 film)
6,646,650 image commentary 50 New York City
6,624,750 image commentary
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