This page records every fact-check pass on the site. It exists because a reference that says "hundreds of corrections" should be able to show them. Each row is one review round: the date, what was reviewed, how many articles changed, and how many corrections the reviewers reported. Counts marked "about" were reported approximately at the time.
A correction here means a change to a claim, not a change of style. The rule the reviewers work to: a detail that the cited source does not state (a name, date, place, number, superlative, or list item) is an error, even if it is probably true. The fix is to say what the source says, to cite a source that does support it, or to cut the detail. Paraphrase is not an error. A claim whose source a reviewer could not reach is left alone and listed, not changed.
How the sourcing rules work, and what kinds of sources the site accepts, is on the About page. The myths index collects the misconceptions those reviews turned up.
Review rounds
| Date | What was reviewed | Articles changed | Corrections |
|---|---|---|---|
| Three South Asia articles Misattributed epithets for Dhaka muslin corrected. |
3 | 4 | |
| Full fact-check of all 36 articles and the timeline Every dated or specific claim checked against a published source. A Sources list was added to every article. Five untraceable images removed; image credits traced. |
37 | about 150 | |
| Second sourcing pass, 19 articles Wikipedia citations replaced with museum, journal, UNESCO and primary-text sources. Claims corrected where the better sources disagreed, including Paracas reds and dates, Vedic dress terms, and the Qing footbinding ban. |
19 | about 25 | |
| Remaining Wikipedia citations, 16 articles Mahmud II's fez reforms, the china poblana, Kilwa spindle whorls, Ingombe Ilede dating, Indus figurine dress, and the nivi drape's origin corrected to match new sources. |
16 | 6 | |
| Chola dynasty and ancient Europe articles Unsupported claims cut or softened, including the kurpasam, the 1077 embassy, and the age at which boys took the toga virilis. |
3 | 8 | |
| Citation sweep, 34 articles Every specific claim now carries a citation checked against its source, or was softened or removed. Citation links rose from 997 to 1,368. Eight corrections where sources contradicted the text, including Maasai dress around 1900, Buganda barkcloth, and the dates of the Indus cities, the Mughal Empire and Inca rule. |
34 | 8 | |
| Fresh-eyes review, round 1 (all articles, timeline, templates) Fourteen independent reviewers. Claims beyond their sources, wrong dates, mis-pointed citations, alt text that did not match the image, and cross-page contradictions. |
37 | about 60 | |
| Fresh-eyes review, round 2 | 40 | 170 | |
| Fresh-eyes review, round 3 | 36 | 90 | |
| Fresh-eyes review, round 4 | 20 | 30 | |
| Fresh-eyes review, round 5 | 13 | 16 | |
| Fresh-eyes review, round 6 | 9 | 10 | |
| Fresh-eyes review, round 7 | 5 | 3 | |
| Fresh-eyes review, round 8 | 5 | 4 | |
| Fresh-eyes review, round 9 | 4 | about 10 | |
| Fresh-eyes review, round 10 | 5 | about 8 | |
| Fresh-eyes review, round 11 | 6 | about 8 | |
| Fresh-eyes review, round 12 | 3 | 3 | |
| Six new topic pages (Ottoman, Mali Empire, Ice Age, Aztec, Inca, Mughal), review round 1 Details the cited source does not state, misattributed quotations, unsupported superlatives, captions that did not match museum records, and three missing citations. |
6 | 49 | |
| Six new topic pages, round 2 | 6 | 39 | |
| Six new topic pages, round 3 | 6 | 26 | |
| Six new topic pages, round 4 | 6 | 18 | |
| Six new topic pages, round 5 | 5 | 11 | |
| Four new topic pages (sari, Viking, qipao, Roman toga), reviewed before publication, round 1 | 4 | 12 | |
| Four new topic pages, round 2 | 4 | 5 | |
| Four new topic pages, round 3 | 4 | 4 | |
| Three survey articles The qipao's Manchu-robe ancestry and 17th-century Banarasi silk, both previously stated as fact, are now attributed to their sources, with the disagreeing scholarship cited. |
3 | 2 | |
| 41 new glossary definition pages, reviewed before publication Qualifiers the sources do not use, one wrong attribution of a quotation, captions and alt text matched to museum records, and two missing citations. |
21 | 29 | |
| Three survey articles and the Inca page, found while reviewing the definitions The huipil described with side slits where its own source says no underarm seam; an agbada caption matched to the Cleveland record; a photograph dated from its Commons record; the Inca cloak no longer called a poncho, which museums date to after the conquest. |
4 | 4 | |
| Six new topic pages (Islamic Golden Age, early Islamic Arab, ancient Egypt, Tang, Byzantine, Heian) and five expanded surveys, reviewed before publication, round 1 Details the sources do not state, such as places, dates and superlatives; Qur’anic and hadith wording matched to the cited translations; citations moved to the sentences they support; six timeline entries reworded to match their sources. |
11 | 56 | |
| Eleven new and expanded pages, round 2 | 10 | 29 | |
| Five new and expanded pages, round 3 | 4 | 6 | |
| Two survey articles, found while checking the new pages against them The kosode described as a Heian court undergarment that people of low status also wore; Kamakura formal dress limited to women of the upper warrior class; Tang rank colors attributed to the early Song system that inherited them; Egyptian laborers’ dress and the claim of unchanging fashion matched to the cited source. |
2 | 6 | |
| Total since September 2026 | about 909 | ||
What the reviews found most often
The same kinds of error came up in every round, in roughly this order of frequency:
- A qualifier the source does not give: "full" skirts, "close-fitting" trousers, "locally" spun cotton, "fired" clay.
- A superlative the source does not make: "the most famous figurine", "the earliest dress law", "the best-preserved costume".
- A quotation credited to the wrong speaker, such as words a magazine quoted from an archaeologist being credited to the magazine.
- A detail moved to the wrong group, such as a rule for cavalry commanders reported as a rule for all officials.
- A caption that did not match the museum record: "mammoth ivory" where the record says "tusk ivory", or a place the record does not name.
- A date attached to the wrong event: a source dated a garment's lengthening to the 1860s, and the text had moved the date to the credit for a new drape.
Each new article now goes through this review before it is published, and a round is repeated until the reviewers come back with nothing, or with single-word trims.