The 50 most interesting articles on Wikipedia

7 Apr

Deep in the bowels of the internet, I came across an exhaustive list of interesting Wikipedia articles by Ray Cadaster. It’s brilliant reading when you’re bored, so I got his permission to post the top 50 here.

Bookmark it, start reading, and become that person who’s always full of fascinating stuff you never knew about.

The top 50 Wikipedia articles by interestingness

1. Marree Man
2. War Plan Red
3. Vela Incident
4. Tybee Bomb
5. United States Numbered Highways
6. Wow! Signal
7. Tube Bar Prank Calls
8. Kola Superdeep Borehole
9. Back to the Future Timeline
10. Year Without a Summer
11. K Foundation Burn a Million Quid
12. Sokal Affair
13. Blue Peacock
14. Veerappan
15. Person From Porlock
16. Eternal Flame
17. U.S. Color-Coded War Plans
18. The Wedge (Border)
19. Mohave Phone Booth
20. Stanislav Petrov
21. Valery Sablin
22. The Man on the Clapham Omnibus
23. Special Atomic Demolition Munition
24. Piracy in the Strait of Malacca
25. Prometheus (tree)
26. Zone of Alienation
27. Fan Death
28. Outlawries Bill
29. Raymond Robinson (Green Man)
30. Scoville Scale
31. Kardashev Scale
32. Larry Walters
33. Joshua A. Norton
34. Fabergé egg
35. Issei Sagawa
36. Joseph Jagger
37. Traumatic Insemination
38. James Joseph Dresnok
39. Ivy League Nude Posture Photos
40. Jim Corbett (Hunter)
41. Just-World Phenomenon
42. Nicholas Bourbaki
43. Humanzee
44. Old Man of the Lake
45. Alexamenos Graffito
46. Fairy Chess Piece
47. Michael Fagan Incident
48. ETAOIN SHRDLU
49. Palomares Hydrogen Bomb Incident
50. As Slow as Possible

*Copybot is not responsible for the hours and hours that disappeared while you were exploring this list. But she is responsible for the fascinated responses you get at the water cooler tomorrow.

Edit: If you enjoyed this list, I’ve since posted 50 more of Wikipedia’s most interesting articles. The second list is less war-focused than this one.


Tags:

69 Responses to “The 50 most interesting articles on Wikipedia”

  1. erichenley September 21, 2009 at 1:10 am #

    It seems that Cadaster had an apparent interst in war, the Soviet Union, and bombs.

    There are much more interesting articles on Wikipedia, considering you can group roughly 15 of those articles together in the aformentioned list.

  2. Shashi Arya September 22, 2009 at 5:54 am #

    amaze to see 14. Veerappan in the list.

  3. chinna33333 September 24, 2009 at 4:55 am #

    good……….

  4. dotndot September 24, 2009 at 7:43 am #

    Great share….Thank you.

  5. Max Cady September 26, 2009 at 5:37 am #

    This list is incomplete! This entry deserves recognition if not #1 status…

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Malloy

  6. Michael September 26, 2009 at 12:39 pm #

    Fascinating. I spent a day, off and on, going through these. Very informative. Thank you.

  7. chris September 27, 2009 at 4:05 am #

    Very interesting. Liked #50. :D

  8. Tom September 28, 2009 at 5:44 am #

    Can’t believe this didn’t make it on here, although I guess the wikipedia page doesn’t quite convey just how ridiculously mysterious these things are:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones

  9. pipeinformatico September 29, 2009 at 5:14 am #

    Interesante blog!

  10. robb September 29, 2009 at 2:44 pm #

    ‘marree man’ and ‘as slow as possible’ are very interesting.

  11. ryan September 29, 2009 at 10:51 pm #

    Great articles! I thought this WWII sniper should get a mention –

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4

  12. CausingTraumaZ October 7, 2009 at 8:50 pm #

    War Red was great

  13. Jim Daniels October 19, 2009 at 3:50 am #

    Looks as if you have a good start. I’ll check this stuff out

  14. James October 19, 2009 at 4:35 pm #

    Eternal Flame very well written .. great article

  15. roxanne October 30, 2009 at 12:11 am #

    If you like these try “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo”—- it’s an awesome wiki article

  16. Justin November 16, 2009 at 5:31 pm #

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_pass_accident

  17. Kento November 19, 2009 at 1:07 am #

    I’ve always been so happy this article exists.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_country_subdivisions_by_area

  18. Michael Henriksen November 21, 2009 at 11:05 am #

    I think you’re missing this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Station_UVB-76

    “UVB-76 is the callsign of a shortwave radio station that usually broadcasts on the frequency 4625 kHz (AM full carrier). It’s known among radio listeners by the nickname “The Buzzer”. It features a short, monotonous UVB-76.ogg buzz tone (help·info), repeating at a rate of approximately 25 tones per minute, for 24 hours per day. The station has been observed since around 1982.[1]

    In rare occasions the buzzer signal is interrupted and a voice transmission in Russian takes place. Only three such events have been noted.

    There is much speculation; however, the actual purpose of this station remains unknown.”

  19. Pierre Spring November 26, 2009 at 10:02 pm #

    schorsch would love them articles

  20. George November 29, 2009 at 12:40 am #

    complete and total FARK

    …but thanks for sharing.

  21. obbop November 29, 2009 at 3:20 am #

    No ties for 36th place?

    Astounding.

    Inconceivable.

    Expecting an imminent rift in the space-time continuum.

    Will an inverse tachyon beam possibly save us?

  22. 72 November 29, 2009 at 4:17 pm #

    Not to be grouchy, but wouldn’t it have been courteous to post a link to Ray Cadaster’s list?

  23. copybot November 29, 2009 at 6:25 pm #

    72: He asked me not to post a link to his list, or the name of the site where it’s hosted.

  24. felsputzer November 30, 2009 at 12:29 am #

    Thank you!

  25. Lex Ein November 30, 2009 at 2:35 am #

    8. Back to the Future Timeline http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_future_timeline is of course broken, now redirecting to the main BTTF trilogy article with (unsurprisingly) no mention of time travel theory. The typical reason for this is simpleminded overzealous Wikipedia exclusionists who relentlessly and arbitrarily destroy WP value. First they claim an article’s content should be merged, but after doing so, they delete the merged content under some other false pretense. Result: luddite victory dance. For anyone curious about the timeline itself, see http://bttf.wikia.com/wiki/Back_to_the_Future_timeline

  26. Kagmi November 30, 2009 at 4:46 am #

    Wow. I’m kind of shocked that the Dancing Plague of 1518 didn’t make it on there.

  27. Steve T. December 4, 2009 at 4:21 pm #

    This is inaccurate. The most interesting article on Wikipedia is Documentary Hypothesis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis

  28. mattgcn December 23, 2009 at 3:24 pm #

    http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Back_to_the_future_timeline&oldid=7869068

    Link to here for the BTTF timeline, because it’s been deleted and changed to a redirect

  29. rajamanickam January 2, 2010 at 2:39 pm #

    I think we should not see “interesting” in wikipedia, instead we need to see “usefulness”.

  30. Nasir January 11, 2010 at 11:45 am #

    wow nice thanks for sharing informative articles :)

  31. George January 11, 2010 at 5:54 pm #

    Hi
    Interesting!
    But one quesstion; What are the parameters to decide these 50 articles?

    Just being curious!

  32. emijrp February 19, 2010 at 7:25 pm #

    I have seeing only the 3 first ones, and they are amazing.

  33. Matt March 2, 2010 at 5:42 am #

    I was glad to see my state of Delaware make the list at #18. I was surprised, but then not surprised, to see it here. I knew of our border’s history and how interesting it is, but didn’t think that others would know.

  34. Oiseaux March 3, 2010 at 10:18 pm #

    This is going to be a lot of bedtime reading!

  35. dennis boas March 4, 2010 at 8:42 pm #

    I am 74 and still greedy for a wide range of subjects.
    Thank you for your hard work to give me so much pleasure.

  36. Ty March 5, 2010 at 3:20 am #

    Some of these are mildly interesting but how about the article “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo”? Some of the truly coolest articles seem to be overlooked.

  37. Nijhumdip March 14, 2010 at 9:03 am #

    Wow! signal one is really interesting :)

  38. Proarticlesdaily May 3, 2010 at 7:04 pm #

    Great Post! Love it!

  39. Seospidy June 28, 2010 at 12:12 pm #

    Thanks for such a nice post.

  40. William July 5, 2010 at 1:35 am #

    Thanks for the list, and curse you for the time I will be wasting when I get into these stories! haha

  41. Dammy July 7, 2010 at 4:02 pm #

    This list is awesome and very useful.

  42. Blake July 15, 2010 at 3:13 pm #

    Wow, really suprised The taman shud case isn’t on here.

  43. David August 5, 2010 at 2:05 am #

    Wow I don’t even know what most of that stuff is.

  44. Gejinder September 12, 2010 at 2:47 pm #

    Surprise for me Veerappan is still one of the hot topic.

  45. Christian December 2, 2010 at 3:18 am #

    I was just thinking “Where is the tamam shud case?” also you should have Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.

  46. halaman bermasalah April 3, 2011 at 4:11 am #

    nice info ..
    very informative ..

  47. Richard Pianka April 22, 2011 at 8:39 pm #

    I’m amazed that the Voynich Manuscript isn’t on this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript

  48. Dixtosa April 24, 2011 at 10:00 am #

    dont agree with some articles, but good post though.

    can you post new list (of course only if you’ve changed mind XD)?

  49. courtneysblanchard April 28, 2011 at 10:32 pm #

    hi there
    some of them are really cool

  50. aquaqleencleaning June 9, 2011 at 6:41 am #

    Some seriously fascinating stuff here. Plan to spend a while. Some of it isn’t all that fascinating, depends on your interests. But I read through this entire list. Note: They should have included Catch-22, my favorite book and the susequent introduction of the phrase into our everyday..

  51. Phrenetic July 3, 2011 at 5:51 pm #

    Is it bad that I already knew most of the stuff listed here?

  52. Briggs July 3, 2011 at 9:54 pm #

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Le_Prince

  53. Briggs July 3, 2011 at 9:57 pm #

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy

  54. Kazoo July 4, 2011 at 5:14 am #

    Where’s the My Little Pony: Friendship is magic article on here?

  55. Cheshire July 10, 2011 at 12:27 am #

    Great list, superb and original :-)

  56. Chaitanya July 26, 2011 at 11:03 am #

    Very Intresting … Liked Just – World Thesis

  57. Cinderella July 31, 2011 at 12:44 pm #

    I like “Blue Peacock”

  58. เย็ด October 4, 2011 at 8:52 am #

    Liked Just – World Thesis

  59. Володимир October 12, 2011 at 9:50 pm #

    I like it. Awesome. Thanks.

  60. Amy January 9, 2012 at 10:59 am #

    Gotta love wikipedia, awesome articles, i can read it all day long!

  61. sania January 27, 2012 at 11:30 am #

    As Slow as Possible…. Well written..

  62. Monkey June 7, 2011 at 3:29 pm #

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Park

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Warren Ellis » Links for 2009-11-24 - November 25, 2009

    [...] The 50 most interesting articles on WikipediaLike it says.(tags:research ) [...]

  2. The 50 most interesting articles on Wikipedia « Copybot « chrisdrit - November 26, 2009

    [...] The 50 most interesting articles on Wikipedia « Copybot By namedb Deep in the bowels of the internet, I came across an exhaustive list of interesting Wikipedia articles by Ray Cadaster. It’s brilliant reading when you’re bored, so I got his permission to post the top 50 here. via copybot.wordpress.com [...]

  3. The 50 most interesting articles on Wikipedia « Ramblings’ Journal is Still Sleeping - November 26, 2009

    [...] top 50 Wikipedia articles by [...]

  4. Etl World News | Assorted links - November 27, 2009

    [...] 6. The fifty most interesting Wikipedia articles? [...]

  5. Links 11/28/09 « Johnsenclan - November 28, 2009

    [...] 50 most interesting articles on Wikipedia [...]

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 38 other followers