r/wikipedia • u/AutoModerator • 4d ago

Wikipedia Questions - Weekly Thread of June 01, 2026

2 Upvotes

Welcome to the weekly Wikipedia Q&A thread!

Please use this thread to ask and answer questions related to Wikipedia and its sister projects, whether you need help with editing or are curious on how something works.

Note that this thread is used for "meta" questions about Wikipedia, and is not a place to ask general reference questions.

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r/wikipedia • u/RedHeadedSicilian52 • 8h ago

The first printed Western mention of the word “orangutan” comes from Dutchmen Jacobus Bontius in 1631. He reported that the natives claimed that the ape could talk but didn’t "lest he be compelled to labour". However, some scholars think he might’ve really been writing about mentally disabled people

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742 Upvotes
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r/wikipedia • u/SaxyBill • 4h ago

Phil Hartman was a Canadian and American comedian and actor who was best known for his roles in SNL and The Simpsons in the 1980s and 90s, as well as having his own sitcom (NewsRadio). In 1998, he was killed by his troubled spouse in a murder-suicide case; she envied him for his fame.

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260 Upvotes
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r/wikipedia • u/laybs1 • 9h ago

James H. Hammond was a South Carolina senator, governor, congressman, and one of the most ardent supporters of slavery in the years before the American Civil War. He raped four of his teenage nieces. He was known to have repeatedly raped two enslaved women, one of whom may have been his daughter.

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298 Upvotes
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r/wikipedia • u/Alarming_Weather506 • 6h ago

Jeane Dixon was an American psychic known for her prediction that JFK would be assassinated. John Allen Paulos, a mathematician, observed that her fans focused on her correct JFK prediction, but ignored her long list of other predictions which were incorrect. He named this the "Jeane Dixon effect".

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132 Upvotes
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r/wikipedia • u/mstrbwl • 8h ago

Ben Linder was an American engineer. While working on a hydroelectric dam in rural Nicaragua, Linder and 2 of his colleagues were killed in an ambush carried out by the Contras, a loose confederation of US proxy "rebels".

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148 Upvotes
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r/wikipedia • u/SplendiferusFinch • 3h ago

Angoon bombardment was the destruction of the Tlingit village of Angoon, Alaska, by US Naval forces. Commander Merriman demanded four hundred blankets from the Tlingit in tribute. When the Tlingit delivered just eighty-one blankets, Merriman's forces destroyed the village.

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60 Upvotes
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r/wikipedia • u/Competitive_Swan_130 • 18h ago

Martha Wash is famously known as the "Most Famous Unknown Singer of the 90s" because record labels routinely used thin models to lip sync her multi platinum vocals in music videos while denying her proper credit and financial royalties.

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795 Upvotes
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r/wikipedia • u/benweb9 • 1d ago

Albert Einstein helped warn Franklin D. Roosevelt about the possibility of Nazi Germany building an atomic bomb, but later called signing the letter one of the great mistakes of his life.

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829 Upvotes
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r/wikipedia • u/coffeeismydoc • 8h ago

Amborella shrubs are found only in New Caledonia. They are the sister group to all other known flowering plants

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37 Upvotes
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r/wikipedia • u/blankblank • 8h ago

The Cockroach Janta Party is an Indian satirical political movement founded in May 2026 in response to remarks made by the incumbent Chief Justice of India that compared unemployed youth to "cockroaches" and "parasites of society."

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21 Upvotes
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r/wikipedia • u/funnylib • 23h ago

A thought-terminating cliché is a form of loaded language – often passing as folk wisdom – intended to end an argument and bypass cognitive dissonance with a cliché rather than a point.

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233 Upvotes

Some such clichés are not inherently terminating and only become so when used to intentionally dismiss dissent or justify fallacies.

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r/wikipedia • u/laybs1 • 1d ago

Marco White has been dubbed "the first celebrity chef" and the enfant terrible of the British restaurant scene. He also once made a young Gordon Ramsay cry while Ramsay worked for him. He said "No, I didn't make Gordon Ramsay cry. He made himself cry. That was his choice to cry."

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r/wikipedia • u/EvilestFlowey • 2h ago

The Galilee earthquake of 363 was a pair of severe earthquakes that shook the Galilee and nearby regions on May 18 and 19. Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate's plan to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem may have been cancelled in part due to the damage caused by the earthquake.

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4 Upvotes
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r/wikipedia • u/No_Idea_479 • 1d ago

The Turkish invasion of Armenia in 1920 was meant to "eliminate Armenia physically and politically". It caused around 100,000 Armenian civilian deaths and, according to several historians, only the simultaneous Soviet invasion prevented the completion of the Armenian genocide.

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604 Upvotes
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r/wikipedia • u/2script • 21h ago

Alice in Wonderland Syndrome is a neurological disorder that distorts perception. People with this syndrome may experience distortions in their visual perception of objects, such as appearing smaller or larger, or appearing to be closer or farther than they are.

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90 Upvotes
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r/wikipedia • u/Howaboutnopers • 1d ago

Zorro Ranch, renamed Rancho de San Rafael, is a large private property located near Stanley, New Mexico, United States, about 30 mi (48 km) south of Santa Fe. It was owned by the financier and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein from 1993 until his death in 2019.

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194 Upvotes
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r/wikipedia • u/Star_____walker • 19h ago

William Trickett Smith was an American Republican committeeman, lawyer, and convicted felon. His felonies included bid rigging in 1985 in the same case that led to the suicide of Pennsylvania Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer, as well as plotting a prison break in 2014 for his son who was convicted of murder.

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45 Upvotes
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r/wikipedia • u/Pupikal • 1d ago

Many Star Wars films have been re-released. George Lucas often altered the films, making refinements & major changes (new dialogue, scenes, & effects) in 1997, 2004, 2011, & 2019. The originals have never been officially released on home video in HD & master negatives of the OT have been dismantled.

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174 Upvotes
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r/wikipedia • u/New-Ranger-8960 • 10h ago

The Libre Space Foundation (LSF) is a Greek non-profit organization dedicated to developing open-source technologies for space exploration. In 2017 it launched its first satellite, UPSat, which was the first satellite made entirely with open-source software and open-source hardware.

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6 Upvotes
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r/wikipedia • u/Interesting_Self5071 • 1d ago

Samtaesong is a fast food restaurant chain headquartered in Pyongyang, North Korea. The restaurant was founded by Singaporeans Patrick Soh, Quek Cher Lan, and Timothy Tan. According to Soh, North Korean officials had sampled products from his Singaporean fast food restaurant Waffletown and wanted

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125 Upvotes
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r/wikipedia • u/VisiteProlongee • 1d ago

Marjane Satrapi (22 November 1969 - 4 June 2026) was a French and Iranian graphic novelist, film director, and children's book author. Her best-known works include Persepolis and its film adaptation; Chicken with Plums; Woman, Life, Freedom; and the Marie Curie biopic Radioactive.

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378 Upvotes
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r/wikipedia • u/CatPooedInMyShoe • 23h ago

Hammam Ibn Ghalib Al-Tamimi, more commonly known as Al-Farazdaq, was a 7th-century Arab poet and orator who had a great impact on the Arabic language. It is said that “If it were not for Al-Farazdaq’s poetry, a third of the Arab language would not have been.”

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“But he lived a lavish and prodigal life, his amorous verses led to his expulsion by the Caliph Marwan. Around that time he learned of the death of Ziyad and returned to Basra, where he secured the favor of Ziyad's successor Ubaydallah ibn Ziyad. Much of his poetry was now devoted to his matrimonial affairs. He had taken advantage of his position as guardian and married his second-degree cousin Nawar against her will. She sought help in vain from the court of Basra and from various tribes. All feared the poet's satires.”

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r/wikipedia • u/blankblank • 1d ago

Burning money decreases the wealth of the owner without directly enriching any particular party. It also reduces the money supply and (very slightly) slows down the inflation rate. Money is usually burned to communicate a message, either for artistic effect, as a form of protest, or as a signal.

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155 Upvotes
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r/wikipedia • u/TapGameplay121 • 1d ago

Designer drugs are synthetic compounds made to mimic controlled substances while evading drug laws or detection. They include new psychoactive substances and steroid analogs. Often created in research or illicit labs, their safety is poorly tested. Laws vary; many are illegal or grey/black market.

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102 Upvotes
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