Talk:May 1453 lunar eclipse

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. Track your hook after promotion. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Dclemens1971 (talk) 16:34, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

Chart of the eclipse

• ... that a lunar eclipse (chart pictured) is said to have fulfilled a prophecy resulting in the fall of Constantinople?

• Source: https://eclipsewise.com/extra/LEhistory.html#1453 "In April, 1453, the Turkish army laid siege to Constantinople. Despite heavy damage, the defenders were able to repair the city walls every night. The fighting morale of the defenders was maintained by an old prophecy that Constantinople could never fall while the Moon was waxing. But on May 22, the Full Moon rose in eclipse, crushing their morale and the city fell several days later." Total eclipses: science, observations, myths, and legends "At this stage in the siege, the morale of the defenders was buoyed up by an ancient prophecy, declaring that Constantinople could not fall if the Moon were waxing. But on 22 May the full Moon went into eclipse, dashing the morale of the troops."

• • Reviewed:
  • Comment: Image is optional.

5x expanded by Kepler-1229b (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has fewer than 5 past nominations.

🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 21:04, 19 March 2026 (UTC).

• General eligibility:
• New enough:
• Long enough:
• Other problems: - See below

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited: - See below
• Interesting:

Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
Freely licensed: Used in article: Clear at 100px:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: @Kepler-1229b: There's a lot to unpack here, but first, I quite like the hook of this nom, especially for an eclipse article which often are pretty routine and don't have too much to talk about! 🙂 Spot check passes, neutral, image passes, etc.. The hook cites Wikipedia among two other sources which is WP:CIRCULAR, could you find a different source for the hook? Prose before your contributions was 84 words, meaning 420 words are needed to be 5x expanded. The article as a whole now includes 423 words of prose, which just passes. There's a few other concerns I have with the page, however, namely WP:LEADCITE, NVB (The eclipse occurred 5.2 days after perigee.), WP:SYNTH in the final sentence/note, and generally much of the Related eclipses section. I know the layout follows that of other eclipse articles, but because of how isolated this article is (i.e. there not another specific eclipse article until 1903), the entire section is red links, and any reader actually wanting to learn more about related eclipses will be disappointed. If not removed, could these potentially be un-wikilinked and just read as a list? Most of these concerns are pretty pedantic, but because of how close the page is to not meeting 5x and the possibility for the prose to slightly change when making some corrections, I wanted to hold off on passing just yet. Once these are addressed I'll have no problem passing, cheers! Johnson524 15:24, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

@User:Johnson524 Thank you for your review of my nomination. For the hook source I have two new ones: The Economist states "The Byzantine defenders and their Venetian and Genoese allies had noticed portents since the lunar eclipse a week earlier." and the book Total eclipses: science, observations, myths, and legends adds that "[a]t this stage in the siege, the morale of the defenders was buoyed up by an ancient prophecy, declaring that Constantinople could not fall if the Moon were waxing. But on 22 May the full Moon went into eclipse, dashing the morale of the troops." I've since removed the links and fixed the sourcing in the article itself, and moved the NVB sentence into the body of the article. As for the WP:SYNTH in the last bit there, how would I improve that section? 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 20:15, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

@Kepler-1229b: great work with the clean-up, and the new hook source(s) work well! In regards to the SYNTH concern, a better source can be added or the information removed. Neither of these, however, are required when it comes to passing this DYK. I more so mention it as something to watch out in future writing, or if you ever wanted to nominate the article for GA. Cheers! Johnson524 02:09, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

@Kepler-1229b and Johnson524: Can you comment on the use of WordInfo.info and EclipseWise.com? These appear to be self-published sources. Thanks! Dclemens1971 (talk) 13:39, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Eclipsewise.com is by a subject-matter expert, Fred Espenak, but I can remove wordino.info. 🪐Kepler-1229b | talk | contribs🪐 14:06, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

That makes sense; thanks. Seems like this source can be used under WP:EXPERTSPS. Dclemens1971 (talk) 16:33, 16 April 2026 (UTC)