Yazid I: what Wikipedia removed
Yazid I was the second Umayyad caliph, whose reign included the killing of Muhammad’s grandson Husayn ibn Ali at Karbala. In 2010 the opening said: “His period witnessed the massacre of Kerbala, losses in North Africa, and a loss of supremacy at sea.” Today the opening calls it “the death of Muhammad’s grandson Husayn ibn Ali”; the word massacre survives once elsewhere in the article, not the opening. A reader today does not learn that the article once called the killing at Karbala a massacre rather than simply a death.
The word “massacre” appeared 1 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2010. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 1. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.
The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot
Section titled “The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot”| word | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 6 October 2023 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| massacre | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Counts are of the opening paragraph only, the part most readers, search engines and AI training sets ever quote.
What was taken out
Section titled “What was taken out”- His birth date, reworded between snapshots.
- The description of Karbala as a massacre, replaced with the word death.
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2005 (revision 17817606):
Yazid bin Muawiyah (c. 645 - 683 ) was the second Umayyad caliph ; he briefly succeeded his father Muawiyah . He died suddenly in 683, after only three years of rule.
2025 (revision 1298300678):
Umayyad caliph from 680 to 683 Yazid ibn Mu’awiya ibn Abi Sufyan ( Arabic : يزيد بن معاوية بن أبي سفيان , romanized : Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiya ibn ʾAbī Sufyān ; c. 646 – 11 November 683), commonly known as Yazid I , was the second caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate , ruling from April 680 until his death in November 683. His appointment by his father Mu’awiya I ( r. 661–680 ) was the first hereditary succession to the caliphate in Islamic history. His caliphate was marked by the death of Muhammad ‘s grandson Husayn ibn Ali and the start of the crisis known as the Second Fitna . During his father’s caliphate, Yazid led several campaigns against the Byzantine Empire , including an attack on the Byzanti…
Related
Section titled “Related”- The drift report: what changed across all 61,944 watched articles
- The case file for this article, with every snapshot and every marked removal
- Who made the cuts: removals grouped by the account that made them
- The live article on Wikipedia
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