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:
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This list is derived from the WP:5000 report. It excludes the Wikipedia main page (and "wiki"), non-article pages, and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish. Standard removals this week include:
G-force; this has been in the Top 25 since the list was started at the beginning of the year. The continuing popularity of this article, which jumped in June 2012, has been without explanation. Articles on popular scientific concepts get nowhere this level of viewing based on our analysis to date, e.g., Gravitation (49,516 views from March 3–9), and therefore we have decided to remove it from the list as most likely caused by non-human views.
Cat anatomy; explanation still unknown for its continuing high view counts
Specific removals this week (those articles for which no reason for any sudden popularity could be located):
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