Wikipedia encyclopedia 2018

2018 (MMXVIII) was a common year starting on Monday in the Gregorian calendar, the 2018th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 18th year of the 3rd millennium, the 18th year of the 21st century, and the 9th year of the 2010s decade

Events

Computer and video games

Games set in 2018:

Movies

Literature

Television series

• The storyline for the sci-fi television series seaQuest DSV begins in 2018.
• The second season of Code Geass takes place in 2018.

Science

Births

Deaths

Further information: Deaths in 2018

References

George I Rákóczi (1593–1648) was a Hungarian nobleman who served as Prince of Transylvania from 1630 until his death. Before acceding to the throne, he was a leader of the Protestant faction in Hungary and a faithful supporter of Prince Gabriel Bethlen. When Bohemian nobles requested military support in their struggles against the Habsburg monarchy, Rákóczi persuaded Bethlen to help and commanded Transylvanian forces in several battles. After Bethlen's death, there were short reigns by his wife and then his brother, but the Transylvanian parliament elected Rákóczi as Bethlen's permanent successor. His reign was notable for his role in the Thirty Years' War, with a campaign against Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, from 1644 to 1645. After Rákóczi held Upper Hungary and most of Lower Hungary at one point, the fighting was ended by the Treaty of Linz, under which seven counties of Upper Hungary were annexed by Transylvania. This etching of Rákóczi was produced in 1631 by the Dutch Golden Age artist Jan Gillisz. van Vliet, after an earlier design by Rembrandt, Van Vliet's teacher. The illustration is in the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Illustration credit: Jan Gillisz. van Vliet, after Rembrandt

Calendar year

2018 (MMXVIII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2018th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 18th year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the 9th year of the 2010s decade.

Calendar year

Events

January

• January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid againstJuba, capital of South Sudan.
• January 12–13 – The first round of voting in the 2018 Czech presidential election is held.
• January 20 – Turkey, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, announces the beginning of a military offensive to capture a portion of northern Syria from Kurdish forces, amidst the ongoing Kurdish–Turkish conflict.
• January 20–22 – The US government enters a federal government shutdown as a result of a dispute over Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
• January 24 – Scientists in China report in the journal Cell the creation of the first monkeyclones using somatic cell nuclear transfer, named Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua.
• January 26–27 – The second round of voting of the 2018 Czech presidential election is held and incumbentpresidentMiloš Zeman is reelected.
• January 28
• January 31 – A total lunar eclipse takes place, the 49th eclipse of Lunar Saros 124. This was referred to by the media as a 'super blue blood moon' as it was close to a supermoon, with perigee being on January 30, and a blue moon eclipse, the first since 1982.

February

• February 4
• February 6 – SpaceX successfully conducts its maiden flight of its most powerful rocket to date, the Falcon Heavy, from LC39A at John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
• February 9–25 – The 2018 Winter Olympics are held in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
• February 10 – Kay Goldsworthy becomes the first female archbishop

People visited Wikipedia over 190 billion times in 2018 alone, many motivated by the encyclopedia’s wealth of in-depth articles about topics you didn’t know enough about.

But in looking at the English Wikipedia’s most-popular articles of 2018, it’s clear that one motivation reigned supreme. People wanted to keep up with the popular culture moments happening around them—including celebrities, the newest film and television releases, and football, known as “soccer” to Americans. (Some notes on these topics follow, with the full list farther down.)

From celebrity news, we’ll get the bad news out of the way: with over 38 million views, the most-popular Wikipedia article of 2018 was the article about deaths in that year.

Following at #8 was Stephen Hawking, who passed away in the middle of March and was one of the most influential scientists of all time. Over ten million of these views came in the week of his death. If you add up all the pageviews across all language Wikipedias, that total went above 27 million—articles about Hawking were the most popular in March on the Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Polish, and Farsi Wikipedias. At #16 is rapper XXXTentacion, who had three different singles chart in the 2018 Billboard Hot 100 lists before his death at the age of 20. Finally, #26 is reserved for beloved chef and television presenter Anthony Bourdain, who died in June. His Wikipedia article describes him as one of the most influential chefs in the world, and his traveling television shows are credited with creating unique windows into history, people, and cultures.

Celebrity marriages also seemed to captivate Wikipedia’s readers in 2018. Meghan Markle, who married the British monarchy’s Prince Harry this year, came in at #5. She was followed by Ariana Grande at #25, whose brief engagement to comedian Pete Davidson was the subject of much tabloid attention, and Priyanka Chopra at #30, who ma