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Summary: Maternity was the theme this week, as Mother's Day was frantically and guiltily celebrated over much of the world and the sitcom How I Met Your Mother finally met its mother, in the form of Cristin Milioti. Also, Angelina Jolie, arguably the world's most famous mother, eulogised her own mother as she recounted her own decision to undergo a double mastectomy, to avoid the breast cancer her mother had died of.

For the week of May 12 to May 18, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:

Rank	Last	Wks	Article	Views	Notes
1	3	4	The Great Gatsby	1,031,771	This perennial contender for the Great American Novel and eternal junior high school homework assignment reached the top this week, most likely from users looking for the Baz Luhrmann film.
2	2	2	Mother's Day	997,462	The second Sunday in May (that's May 12 to all you ingrates who forgot) is far and away the most popular time of year to celebrate Mother's Day, and, even as the day fell, panicked college students in all participating countries rushed to their computers to see if they'd blown it.
3	10	11	Game of Thrones	618,876	This epic fantasy TV series launched its third season on March 31, and has seen its ratings almost double on its premiere episode.
4	-	-	Mastectomy	560,917	Angelina Jolie clearly did the world a service when she announced that she had undergone this potentially humiliating procedure to avoid the breast cancer her mother had died of. After her disclosure, more than half a million users came to Wikipedia to learn more about it, potentially saving their own or their loved ones' lives.
5	11	19	Facebook	548,451	A perennially popular article.
6	3	3	Star Trek Into Darkness	543,329	The top-ranked movie of the weekend has earned $84 million in four days in the US. Despite this, its distributors are debating whether to call it a disappointment. Such is the way of Hollywood these days.
7	-	3	Daft Punk	538,947	This robot-helmet-wearing, cyberpunk-infused electronic music duo released their long-awaited new album Random Access Memories on May 17.
8	13	2	The Great Gatsby (2013 film)	504,940	Although Baz Luhrmann's 3D, hip-hop-infused, orgiastic take on the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel (see above) fell 52% in its second week, it gained nearly 100,000 views on Wiki English.
9	-	-	Random Access Memories	503,864	Daft Punk's new album (see #7 above)
10	-	-	Eurovision Song Contest 2013	484,549	The kitschiest exercise in human unity ever devised, that 800 million people across a continent love to hate to love, was televised this week from its spiritual homeland, Sweden.
11	-	-	Angelina Jolie	472,097	Slightly freaky sex symbol. Serial homewrecker. Oscar-winning thespian. UN ambassador. Domestic goddess. This gal's public image has had almost as many makeovers as Madonna's in half the time. Now she's earned public attention and admiration once again for daring to "come out" about her double mastectomy, which has brought much-needed exposure to a taboo subject.
12	20	5	Arrow (TV series)	471,145	This Green Arrow TV series rose in popularity with its season finale on May 15.
13	–	5	How I Met Your Mother	467,464	The 12th most popular article on Wikipedia between 2010 and 2012 makes a reappearance in the top 25 as the show's season finale, which finally revealed who the titular mother was to be.
14	6	4	Iron Man 3	436,288	As expected, this mega-blockbuster crossed the $1 billion worldwide mark this week.
15	-	-	Cristin Milioti	428,022	This actress became a water-cooler sensation overnight when she was revealed as the titular mother in the sitcom How I Met Your Mother.
16	14	29	Deaths in 2013	396,061	The lists of deaths in the current year is always a quite popular article.
17	16	5	Game of Thrones (season 3)	390,441	see #3 above
18	18	5	List of Game of Thrones episodes	384,143	see #3 above
19	-	-	How I Met Your Mother (season 8)	382,101	see #13 above
20	-	3	Aashiqui 2	381,526	The popularity of this Bollywood blockbuster is a window on the substantial Indian presence on the English Wiki English.
21	-	-	Attack on Titan	367,275	Popular anime series nearing the end of its run.
22	17	30	World War II	363,224	Another perennially popular article. (The 16th most popular article from 2010–12, in fact, see Table 2 here.)
23	-	-	The Office (U.S. TV series)	354,298	the long-running US answer to the acerbic British comedy showed its last ever episode on May 17.
24	18	5	List of How I Met Your Mother episodes	350,970	see #13 above
25	15	31	YouTube	390,140	Another perennially popular article

• This list is derived from the WP:5000 report. It excludes the Wikipedia main page (and "wiki"), non-article pages, and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish. Standard removals this week include:
  • Cat anatomy: explanation still unknown for its continuing high view counts
  • G: Spike in views beginning April 29

Specific removals this week (those articles for which no reason for any sudden popularity could be located):

• Haggis: I appreciate the aftertaste of lung as much as anyone, but one has to wonder how this managed to garner 2 million views.
• Smart glass: Perhaps a mistaken search for Google Glass?
• HSDPA/Paladium: The fact that these were redirects suggests that they were spam (and also that spambots can't spell).
• Fulla Nayak: World's oldest woman who died in 2006. Besides a fairly humdrum TIL on Reddit, no reason for it to be so high.

• Number of views needed to reach Top 25 this week: 349,207. Last week: 300,022.
• Almosts: Google (340,050 views); The Big Bang Theory (314,890 views); List of Bollywood films of 2013 (305,610 views)
• The revision of WP:5000 containing the data used to create list: [1]