Most-viewed articles of the week

Summary: Death hangs over the top 10 this week, as tragic deaths both past and present continued to cast their pall over an already troubled world. The death of Corey Monteith led to a spike in interest in the man himself, his girlfriend and co-star Lea Michele, and the show that made them both famous, Glee. Meanwhile, the tragic death of Trayvon Martin and its troubling implications for gun safety and race relations in the United States continued to be a talking point.

For the week of July 14 to 20, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes
1	Cory Monteith		2,678,320		The death of the 31-year-old star of Glee from an combined overdose of alcohol and heroin was the defining pop-culture event of the week
2	Shooting of Trayvon Martin		2,397,205		The debate over George Zimmerman's shooting of unarmed Trayvon Martin in February 2012, and its relevance to race relations in America and the validity of "stand your ground" laws, reached its climax on July 13 when a jury found Zimmerman not guilty of either murder or manslaughter.
3	Rembrandt		1,403,377		The greatest of the Dutch masters got a Google Doodle to celebrate his 407th birthday on July 15.
4	Pacific Rim (film)		928,640		Guillermo del Toro's $190-million anime-inspired monsters vs. robots slugfest is not tracking well with the American mainstream, and now seems unlikely to crack $100 million domestically, but remains in its second week the biggest talking point among Wikipedian cineastes.
5	Lea Michele		794,606		The co-star and girlfriend of the late Corey Monteith got a great deal of interest from Wikipedians in the wake of Monteith's tragic death.
6	Milkha Singh		775,259		"The Flying Sikh", the record-breaking track and fielder who represented India in three Olympic Games, became a topic of interest after his biopic, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, was released on July 12. Singh sold the rights for ₹1 but insisted a share of the profits be given to a charitable trust.
7	Facebook		684,885		A perennially popular article.
8	Glee (TV series)		595,960		The popular glee club TV show made its 2013 debut in the top 25 on the back of Cory Monteith's tragic death.
9	Bhaag Milkha Bhaag		566,299		Biopic of Indian athlete Milkha Singh (see #6 above)
10	Stand-your-ground law		495,954		The controversial US gun law that allows people the right of self-defense without the requirement of retreat has been flagged by the shooting of Trayvon Martin (see #2 above)

In this issue

18 August (all comments)
Wikipedia:Serendipodous

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