Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries/May 23

This is the talk page for making suggestions or discussing improvements to Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/May 23.

To report an error when this list is currently on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
Before making a suggestion, please read the selected anniversaries guidelines. Please remember that this list usually defers to supporting pages when there is disagreement, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
To discuss improvements to the corresponding May 23 article, see Talk:May 23 instead.

Frequently asked questions

Q1: Why is [Insert event here], an event that is "more important and significant" than all the others that are currently listed, not posted?: A1: Relative article quality along with the mix of topics already listed are often deciding factors in what gets posted. Any given day of the year can have a great many important or significant historical events. The problem is that there is generally only room on the Main Page to list about 5 events at a time, so not everything can be posted.

As stated on Wikipedia:FAQ/Main Page, the items and events posted on the Main Page are chosen based more on how well they are written, not based on how much important or significant their subjects are. It is easier for admins to select a well-written, cited, verifiable article over a poor one versus trying to determine objectively how much a subject is important or significant.

Keep in mind that the quality requirements only apply to the selected bolded article, not the other links. Thus, an event may qualify for multiple dates in a year if there is an article written in a summary style and an article providing detailed content; if one of those pages have cleanup issues, the other page can be bolded as an alternate.

Another criterion is to maintain some variety of topics, and not exhibit, just for example, tech-centrism, or the belief that the world stops at the edge of the English-speaking world. Many days have a large pool of potential articles, so they will rotate in and out every year to give each one some Main Page exposure. In addition, an event is not posted if it is also the subject of this year's scheduled featured article or featured picture.

Q2: There are way too many 20th-century events listed. Why aren't there more events from the 19th century and before?

A2: The short, basic reason is the systemic bias of Wikipedia. There are not enough good, well-written articles on 19th-century and earlier events for all 365 days in the year. Currently, a majority of users seem to be generally more interested in writing articles about recent events. If you would like to further help mitigate the systemic bias in Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias.

Q3: This page seems to be biased toward events based in [Insert country or region here]. What can be done about it?

A3: This again is attributed to the systemic bias of Wikipedia. Many users are generally more interested in working on good, well-written articles pertaining to their home country. Since this is the English Wikipedia, there will be more English-speaking users, and thus more articles pertaining to English-speaking countries. And if there are more users who are from the United States, there will probably be more well-written articles about events based in the United States. Again, if you would like to further help mitigate the systemic bias in Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias.

Q4: Why is the birthday/death anniversary of [Insert name here] not listed?

A4: There are only four slots available for birth and death anniversaries. As with the events, article quality and diversity in time period, geography, and reason for notability are all contributing factors in whether an article gets selected for inclusion.

Q5: Are the holidays/observances listed in any particular order?

A5: Yes, there is a specified order: International observances first, then alphabetically by where observed.

Q6: Some of the holidays/observances that are listed have dates in parentheses beside them. What do they mean?

A6: There are two reasons that some holidays/observances have dates next to them:

Non-Gregorian-based holidays/observances are marked with the current year as a reminder to others that their dates do in fact vary from year to year.
National Days, Independence Days, and other holidays celebrating the nationhood of a country are generally marked by the year of the significant historic date being observed.

Today's featured article for May 23, 2025
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← Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries/May 22 * Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries/May 24 →

Suggestion: Defenestrations of Prague - precipitate of the Thirty Years' War. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.24.84.55 (talk • contribs) 2006 January 16.

Precipitate ? The Eighty Years' War started on the same day in 1568, and Joan of Arc was captured on the same day in 1430. Thanks for the suggestion, but we already have two very strong items related to Medieval European military history. Let's diversify. -- PFHLai 19:20, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another suggestion: 1945 : End of the Flensburg government under Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz. -- PFHLai 21:36, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I added the assassination of Giovanni Falcone one of the two most prominent anti-mafia prosecutors of the 20th century (the other one, Paolo Borsellino will be killed the same year, less than two months after Falcone's death). This year marks the 20th anniversary of the killing of Falcone and Borsellino. --DarTar (talk) 20:44, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

2012 notes

Moved to Ineligible: Giovanni Falcone (maintenance)
Omitted: Defenestrations of Prague; William Kidd; Bábism; Bonnie and Clyde; Karl Dönitz (ineligible; blurb now features Flensburg Government instead)
Included: Siege of Compiègne (5th appearance, last in 2009; rescued from Ineligible); Battle of Ramillies (3rd appearance, last in 2010); Royal Canadian Mounted Police (5th appearance, last in 2008; rescued from Ineligible); New York Public Library (3rd appearance, last in 2005); Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet (first appearance)

—howcheng {chat} 16:12, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

2013 notes

Moved to Ineligible: Flensburg Government (maintenance)
Omitted: Siege of Compiègne; Battle of Ramillies; New York Public Library; Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet
Included: English Reformation (first appearance; blurb is also making its first appearance, but previously featured Thomas Cranmer, which already appears on March 21); Bábism (3rd appearance, last in 2011); Auto-Lite strike (first appearance); Pedra Branca dispute (3rd appearance, last in 2011)
Repeats: Royal Canadian Mounted Police (2nd consecutive appearance, 6 total)

—howcheng {chat} 06:21, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

2014 notes

Omitted: English Reformation; Royal Canadian Mounted Police; Auto-Lite strike; Pedra Branca dispute
Included: Pope Paul IV (2nd appearance, last in 2004; rescued from Ineligible); Defenestrations of Prague (3rd appearance, last in 2011); Bonnie and Clyde (8th appearance, last in 2011); 2010 Kingston unrest (first appearance)
Repeats: Bábism (2nd consecutive appearance, 4 total)

—howcheng {chat} 05:43, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

2015 notes

Omitted: Pope Paul IV; Defenestrations of Prague; Bábism; Bonnie and Clyde
Included: Girolamo Savonarola (7th appearance, last in 2010; rescued from Ineligible); William Kidd (2nd appearance, last in 2011); New York Public Library (4th appearance, last in 2012; rescued from Ineligible); Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet (2nd appearance, last in 2012)
Repeats: 2010 Kingston unrest (2nd consecutive appearance, 2 total)

—howcheng {chat} 06:54, 21 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

2016 notes

Omitted: Girolamo Savonarola; William Kidd; New York Public Library; Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet; 2010 Kingston unrest
Included: Siege of Compiègne (6th appearance, last in 2012); Battle of Ramillies (4th appearance, last in 2012); Royal Canadian Mounted Police (7th appearance, last in 2013); Bonnie and Clyde (9th appearance, last in 2014); Pedra Branca dispute (4th appearance, last in 2013)

—howcheng {chat} 01:46, 22 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

2017 notes

Moved to Ineligible: English Reformation (maintenance); Defenestrations of Prague (maintenance); William Kidd (maintenance); 2010 Kingston unrest (maintenance)
Omitted: Battle of Ramillies; North-West Mounted Police (ineligible—maintenance); Bonnie and Clyde
Included: Bábism (5th appearance, last in 2014); Auto-Lite strike (2nd appearance, last in 2013); Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet (3rd appearance, last in 2015); Ruth Fernández (first appearance); Heinrich Himmler (first appearance); Florence Violet McKenzie (first appearance)
Repeats: Siege of Compiègne (2nd consecutive appearance, 7 total); Pedra Branca dispute (2nd consecutive appearance, 6 total)

—howcheng {chat} 07:17, 23 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Please remove I-5 Skagit River Bridge collapse, totally unimportant

Seriously. Local news, nobody died. This is barely notable, and certainly not a major historical event that should ever make it to SA. If we want to be US centric, 2015 Texas–Oklahoma flood and tornado outbreak, while local news too, at least had some casualties and it is plausible it was reported in international media. The terrorist bombings in Syria had double the death toll, but of course, it's Syria, so there's no dedicated article yet. Or we could mention the Good Friday Agreement, an event which, unlike this ridiculous bridge collapse, is mentioned in history books. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:48, 23 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Piotrus: Well it's already up for this year, so it's not going anywhere, but I thought it was interesting that a bridge that had been recently examined and found to be structurally sound could collapse after a single collision (unrelated to its location). Also, we don't have that many bridge collapse articles, so that's another point in its favor. Maybe we can just make a note for this article to not appear very often. As for your other suggestions, Good Friday Agreement normally appears on April 10 (you can see the OTD box on Talk:Good Friday Agreement), but the article is currently ineligible due to maintenance tags. The tornado one looks to be in good shape, but I'm not really sure what day to put it on. The infobox has May 22 as the start date, but that's not mentioned in the article anywhere. I suppose May 23 is as good as any. Truth be told, I tend to avoid tornado articles because we have a lot of them, although they (like hurricane articles) are clustered around August and September. —howcheng {chat} 16:10, 23 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Howcheng: I think my reply to this crashed a while back. As long as we replace it with anything else it should be ok. The bridge incident is a very trivial news. Quality of article is a factor, but if we cannot find anything better, it would be preferable to just remove this line. Its very existence alongside other events is ridiculous: just consider what we talk about: pope elected, famous battle/war, major organizaton estabilished, important political event - and a 'no fatalities car/infrastructure accident'. For now, I'll simply remove the line. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:05, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Piotrus: Do you realize it was on the Main Page the whole day and there were no other complaints besides yours? And believe me, people don't hesitate to complain about this sort of stuff (as you did). Please consider the possibility that you might be the only one who feels that way. —howcheng {chat} 07:14, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Howcheng: Would you like to have an RfC on this? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:42, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

RfC on I-5 Skagit River Bridge collapse

Per discussion above, I think this event does not rise the level of importance that merits its inclusion in 'On this day...'. User:Howcheng disagrees. We clearly need more input, since in the past year nobody else commented here. TIA. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:53, 7 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Here is my issue with your RFC. For this day, the pool of eligible articles only contains six items. So even if the event is relatively minor (and I still think it's interesting, which is a plus), my standards for inclusion (not in terms of quality) are going to be a little bit lower than on a day where there are a lot of available articles. —howcheng {chat} 06:54, 7 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's better to not rotate any events then to rotate and include such minor ones, IMHO. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:58, 7 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - I oppose inclusion of the I-5 Skagit River Bridge collapse in 'On this day...' per WP:OTDRULES. This topic is not "moderate to great historical significance". I came here based on RfC bot request.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 21:51, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2018 notes

Moved to Ineligible: Girolamo Savonarola (maintenance)
Omitted: Siege of Compiègne; Bábism; Auto-Lite strike; Pedra Branca dispute; Ruth Fernández; Heinrich Himmler; Florence Violet McKenzie
Included: Pope Paul IV (3rd appearance, last in 2014); Battle of Ramillies (5th appearance, last in 2016); North-West Mounted Police (2nd appearance, last in 2016; rescued from Ineligible); I-5 Skagit River Bridge collapse (first appearance); Elias Ashmole (first appearance); Margaret Fuller (first appearance); David Lewis (politician) (first appearance)
Repeats: Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet (2nd consecutive appearance, 4 total)

—howcheng {chat} 16:47, 23 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

2019 notes

Omitted: Pope Paul IV; North-West Mounted Police; I-5 Skagit River Bridge collapse; Elias Ashmole; Margaret Fuller; David Lewis (politician)
Included: New York Public Library (5th appearance, last in 2015); Over the Edge (1999) (first appearance; 20th anniversary); William Bradford (printer, born 1663) (first appearance); Franz Xaver von Baader (first appearance); Ruth Fernández (2nd appearance, last in 2017; 100th birthday)
Repeats: Battle of Ramillies (2nd consecutive appearance, 6 total); Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet (3rd consecutive appearance, 5 total)

—howcheng {chat} 15:57, 23 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2020 notes

Deleted: Bábism] (moved to May 22)
Omitted: Battle of Ramillies; New York Public Library; Seventeen Point Agreement; Over the Edge (1999); William Bradford (printer, born 1663); Franz Xaver von Baader; Ruth Fernández
Included: Siege of Compiègne (8th appearance, last in 2017); English Reformation (2nd appearance, last in 2013; rescued from Ineligible); Bonnie and Clyde (10th appearance, last in 2016; rescued from Ineligible); Pedra Branca dispute (6th appearance, last in 2017); Ignaz Moscheles (first appearance); Margaret Fuller (2nd appearance, last in 2018); Heinrich Himmler (2nd appearance, last in 2017; 75th anniversary)

—howcheng {chat} 23:51, 24 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion for 2021

The Aromanian National Day, celebrated on 23 May, has a well-referenced article that also explains why it is celebrated. It is also an official holiday in North Macedonia. If it is included, it can be either displayed as "Aromanian National Day in North Macedonia" or simply as "Aromanian National Day" without specifying any country. I prefer the latter since Aromanians from other countries also celebrate this holiday on this day. Super Ψ Dro 11:58, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

2021 notes

Omitted: Siege of Compiègne; English Reformation; Bonnie and Clyde; Pedra Branca dispute; Ignaz Moscheles; Margaret Fuller; Heinrich Himmler
Included: Aromanian National Day (first appearance); Pope Paul IV (4th appearance, last in 2018); North-West Mounted Police (3rd appearance, last in 2018); New York Public Library (6th appearance, last in 2019); Seventeen Point Agreement (6th appearance, last in 2019; 70th anniversary); Airbus A300 (first appearance); John Wood, the Elder (first appearance); ʻAbdu'l-Bahá (2nd appearance, last in 2018; also appears on November 28, his death anniversary); David Lewis (politician) (2nd appearance, last in 2018; 40th anniversary)

—howcheng {chat} 22:00, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

2022 notes

Omitted: Pope Paul IV; New York Public Library; Seventeen Point Agreement; Airbus A300; John Wood, the Elder; ʻAbdu'l-Bahá (deleted–appears elsewhere); David Lewis (politician)
Included: Siege of Compiègne (9th appearance, last in 2020); Battle of Ramillies (7th appearance, last in 2019); Auto-Lite strike (3rd appearance, last in 2017); Pedra Branca dispute (7th appearance, last in 2020); Philip I of France (first appearance); C. R. M. F. Cruttwell (first appearance); Florence Violet McKenzie (3rd appearance, last in 2017; 40th anniversary)
Repeats: North-West Mounted Police (2nd consecutive appearance, 4 total)

—howcheng {chat} 07:08, 24 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]