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Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/April 19 to 25, 2020

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Prepared with commentary by Rebestalic

⭠ Last week's report

This week's Top 25 saw Supreme Leader of North Korea Kim Jong-un spectacularly depose 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic's week long streak in top place, although articles related to the current pandemic still persisted in the past seven days (this jump is probably attributed to Mr. Kim's reported illness). Netflix and the rest of the moving picture industry continued to be the crucial salt-and-pepper of the outlook, with Extraction being a new entry, among other articles for actors and directors.

Of particular interest is the strong correlation of views of related articles; for example, the articles related to Kim Jong-Un moved up and down together instead of demonstrating solitary movement.

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes/about
1 Kim Jong-un 2,655,866 It has now been widely reported that Supreme Leader of North Korea Kim Jong-Un may be ill, and perhaps gravely. We don't know for sure, due to the North Korean media's/Government's reluctance to disclose whatever's happening by the second--a behaviour which is understandable on the grounds of maintaining civil order. Unfortunately, rumours have also begun to circulate amongst the facts; I've personally been told that Mr. Kim has died from his illness, despite there being no apparent evidence for such a claim. What is certain, however, is that we won't really know all the nitty-gritty details until a while after this ordeal.
2 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic 2,583,983 The current pandemic was able to be referred to as the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic because its first cases were identified on the 31st December 2019--that is to say, New Years' Eve. Ever since, the baton for the most-COVID--affected country has changed hands multiple times; from China, to various countries in Europe, and now to the United States. At the time of writing, total infections number almost three million--that's more than the populations of some whole countries.
3 Michael Jordan 1,908,722 Oh yes, that's legendary basketball Michael Jordan only just missing the height mark set by an Army National Guard member who has the advantage of standing on a chair.

Jordan, 6′6″ (1.98 metres) tall, was born in Fort Greene, Brooklyn to Deloris and James R. Jordan Senior. He tried out for his varsity team at Emsley A. Laney High School in his second year at the school but was rejected (ironically, because the people there thought he was too short). The young Michael, naturally, wasn't very happy--and made himself a tough act to follow at the school's Junior varsity team. Things (overall, of course) just got better after that. Jordan - who now owns both the Charlotte Hornets and a steakhouse chain - is known as the best basketballer to ever hit the paint, and his career up to the last title he got in 1998 is currently being chronicled by the Netflix show The Last Dance.
4 Waco siege 1,787,369 The Waco siege, also gathering Netflix viewers through the miniseries Waco, to me, is a very complicated piece of history. Here's an oversimplification:

The Waco siege occurred at the Mount Carmel Center near Waco, Texas, in early 1993. The Mount Carmel Center was home to the Branch Davidians, a religious sect with ideology originating from the Davidian Seventh-day Adventist Church, which in itself originated from the Seventh-day Adventist Church (which is a form of Protestantism). Their leader was David Koresh (who appears in this list at #8). Now, along comes the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives--they suspect the Branch Davidians of possession of illegal weapons. The ATF soon launched a raid on the Mount Carmel Center, and the Branch Davidians, having knowledge of the raid, returned fire, and things got messy. Eventually, the ATF withdrew-- and with the knowledge that federal employees had been killed, the FBI took over and began a siege, which would last fifty-one days. The purpose of the FBI's actions, in short, was to attempt to drive the Branch Davidians out of the Mount Carmel Center. They try to do that with both negotiation and force. Remember that guy David Koresh? Well, turns out that he's getting harder and harder to negotiate with; eventually, he proclaimed that he was Jesus Christ himself, and God had commanded him to stay in Mount Carmel Center. Inevitably, the FBI had no choice but to drive the Branch Davidians out of Mount Carmel Center by firepower (that is, on the Center itself, not on any of the Branch Davidians; to do that, they planned to use tear gas). After all, by now, the siege was reportedly costing a million dollars per week. The FBI went ahead. Eventually, three fires broke out --they're pictured on the left. In the end, only nine people decided to leave the Center; the majority of the rest of the Branch Davidians, remained inside--and were all killed, by either inhaling things they weren't supposed to inhale, being stabbed, being shot, having things fall on them or otherwise. David Koresh was shot by his right-hand man; his right-hand man then committed suicide by shooting himself.

The Branch Davidian faith still exists today, held up by about 1,200 people.

I'm sorry this had to be so long, the Waco siege really was quite complex (as you can see). For more details, please do click the link provided.
5 Scottie Pippen 1,601,645 Scotty Maurice Pippen, AKA Scottie Pippen, is an American former basketball player. Pippen had the good fortune to, in the 80s/90s, be a Chicago Bulls player--and of course, that meant playing with Michael Jordan (#3) and winning six NBA rings with him. From what I've read about him, he's considered a legendary small forward; so legendary, in fact, that his jersey was one of only four retired by the Bulls in all of its history. Pippen is three years younger than Michael Jordan and taller (by two inches).
6 Too Hot to Handle (TV series) 1,560,653 The people at Too Hot to Handle will not like it if you try anything sexual.

Too Hot to Handle is a reality, dating, game show, aimed at teaching people to make relationships meaningful (as opposed to one night stands, where things are only rosy for, well, one night]]). Netflix did the magic of releasing the series on the 17th this month. Essentially, you're taken to a (quote) 'special island villa for four weeks to find love and $100,000'. All sounds well fine, until now--a virtual assistant named Lana (no, that's not a digitised version of Lana Del Rey) tells you that you can't do anything sexual. If you do, your prize money is reduced. 'Sexual' here includes kissing, which will deduct $3,000 from the 100K initially offered. That doesn't sound too big a dent, until you get to actual, fully-fledged sexual intercourse (up to $20,000). That's 20,000 dollar meals from whatever fast-food joint that you could've bought. Pictured is Bryce Hirschberg, one of the winners in this season.
7 2020 NFL Draft 1,490,297 The 2020 NFL Draft was the 85th of such drafts for the NFL. Due to the current pandemic, it was held by videoconferencing. The very first pick of the entire draft was 2019 Louisiana State University Tigers quarterback Joe Burrow (pictured) for the Cincinnati Bengals. Here's a video of him playing in his team (as well as general highlights of the game his team were playing)--he's truly amazing.
8 David Koresh 1,191,287 You know quite a bit about this guy already. (see #4)
9 Extraction (2020 film) 1,061,174 How would you feel if you were a black-market soldier hired by another black-market soldier to rescue the child of India's biggest drug lord from the hostage of Bangladesh's biggest drug lord? Well, Chris Hemsworth (pictured) has been through a lot, all the way from posing for photos for GQ to acting as Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe where/when needed. No surprises, he took on the role as the black market soldier I mentioned first. Netflix released Extraction on the 24th of April this year.
10 Jerry Krause 1,032,853 More The Last Dance entries: Jerome "Jerry" Krause is perhaps best known for being the general manager of the Chicago Bulls for eighteen years; his tenure saw the prime of Michael Jordan's (#3) playing career. Krause was born in Chicago. He became a basketball scout after graduating from university, and became General Manager of the Bulls in 1985. Krause resigned from general managerial duties in 2003, and passed away in early 2017. Pictured to the left is Chicago Stadium; this was the home stadium for the Bulls for the early part of Krause's managerial career.
11 Deaths in 2020 1,009,913 We're now a third into 2020, and already, almost twenty million have died (exact number, according to Worldometers: 18, 998, 524). About one in a hundred of said deaths are directly related to infection from COVID-19 (ranked here at #21).

If a person close to you has recently breathed their last, celebrate what they did in their lifetimes. Indeed, I've included a photo of an altar for Day of the Dead to the left.
12 2020 coronavirus pandemic in India 928,209 Despite an (I think) nationwide lockdown imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India's daily case increases of COVID-19 are starting to pick up (the total stands at almost 30,000). But hey, it could be far worse without the lockdown; India is, of course, a nation home to many, many people (~1.38 billion, if you like numbers). With that number in mind, a scenario of unbridled transmission would of course be terrifically destructive.
13 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic by country and territory 884,087 It's worldwide.
14 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United States 878,207 When considering total infections, the United States currently has about a third of the world's count. The state of New York remains the most-affected state, with neighbouring New Jersey also being dealt a lion's share of the carnage. Since its first infection, the United States' daily case rates have (for the most part) followed the epidemic curve, although we're starting to see some strange rebounds and drop-outs in numbers are starting to appear a periodic phenomenon.
15 Spanish flu 856,455 This outbreak, also worldwide, concerned a strain of influenza derived from pigs (to be exact, a strain of H1N1. It's been estimated that total infections of this pandemic could have been a whopping 500 million, while deaths could have been anywhere from 17 to 50 million. We don't really know for certain; lots of data from the initial stages of the pandemic was censored due to the beginning of the pandemic coinciding with World War I (and of course, during wartime, you wouldn't want your citizens bogged down by yet another big problem).
16 Money Heist 798,072 Known as 'La Casa de Papel' in its native Spanish, Money Heist is essentially a TV series that documents heists for money. It has proven an exceptionally good one at that, earning a pile of accolades at the 46th International Emmy Awards, as well as good public reception. Pictured at the left is the Royal Mint of Spain, a place where the main characters try to steal from.
17 Coronavirus 723,882 The Coronaviruses are a large family of illness-causers; they are characterised by those spikes that stick out of them. These are called peplomers, and give a coronavirus the look of a corona (Latin: crown) when viewed under an electron microscope. Coronaviruses can offer up anything from types of common colds to a ~30% chance of dying (see the article for MERS-related coronavirus).
18 Ramadan 678,699 Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, beginning at the crescent moon of that appropriate time to the one after. In Ramadan, Muslims are obliged to fast in the time between sunrise and sunset, provided they aren't badly or persistently ill, very old, pregnant, menstruating or breastfeeding, or diabetic. There are two meals during Ramadan; Suhur and Iftar (being the pre-sunrise and post-sunset meals respectively). Currently, in the Islamic calendar, it happens to be Ramadan.
19 Ozark (TV series) 617,649 This Netflix-produced series follows the story of a couple who are forced to move to the Ozarks (a high-altitude area of terrain characterised by mountains and pleteaus) due to their money-laundering plan going bust. Ozark has so far received 14 Primetime Emmy Award nominations (two of which it won).
20 Joe Exotic 602,426 The animal abuser, the hirer-to-kill, the former police officer, the victim of a child rape, that's Joesph Allen Maldonado-Passage--better known as Joe Exotic. It's all in Netflix-produced Tiger King.
21 Coronavirus disease 2019 580,654 Caused by the Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, the effects of Coronavirus disease 2019 (AKA 'COVID-19') is characterised by what you see on the left; and most commonly, a fever and dry cough ('dry' in this context meaning that coughing doesn't produce phlegm, the yellow stuff that comes out your throat).
22 Rashida Jones 572,506 Rashida Jones and Kenya Barris, both actors, each win a hard-earned spot on the Top 25 through Netflix-produced BlackAF, a television series about fitting in that was released this month. BlackAF was the Barris' acting debut, whereas it was one of many engagements on Jones' part, including an episode of The Simpsons.
23 Kenya Barris 557,529
24 Kim Jong-il 540,156 And, at #24 and #25, two articles related to the Kim Jong-Un (#1) cluster. Here's the breakdown: Kim Jong-il was the second leader of North Korea, and the son of its founder and first leader Kim Il-sung, while Kim Yo-jong is Jong-un's younger sister. Yo-jong is reportedly quite close to her older brother, and it's been claimed that she would be the immediate heir in case that Jong-un died, became critically incapacitated or be otherwise rendered unable to carry out his duties.
25 Kim Yo-jong 539,516
Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (April 19 to 25, 2020)
Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (April 19 to 25, 2020)

Exclusions

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  • This list excludes the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Since mobile view data became available to the Report in October 2014, we exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% or more) because they are very likely to be automated views based on our experience and research of the issue. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish.