In 2005 Wikipedia's first sentence called it “highest ranking israeli fighter pilot to fall into enemy hands”. Today it says “lieutenant colonel in the israel air force”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2025 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since.Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now.Red text: written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot.1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2025
Avraham " Avi " Lanir ( Hebrew : אברהם "אבי" לניר ; January 25, 1940 – October 1973) was a lieutenant colonel in the Israel Air Force . He was the highest-ranking Israeli fighter pilot to fall into enemy hands. His image was engraved in the Israeli consciousness as a heroic figure, as a man who gave his life under severe torture in captivity in Syria and did not divulge the secrets of the state in which he was trusted - secrets that probably touched on the subject of "the weapon that Israel never admitted to exist".
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 1287410372.
The opening as it stood in 2010
Lieutenant Colonel Avraham "Avi" Lanir (January 25, 1940 – October 1973) was the highest ranking Israeli fighter pilot to fall into enemy hands.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 367613010.
The opening as it stood in 2015
Avraham "Avi" Lanir (January 25, 1940 – October 1973) was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Israel Air Force . He was the highest ranking Israeli fighter pilot to fall into enemy hands. He was tortured to death by his Syrian captors.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 640836322.
The opening as it stood in 2020 1 passage from the previous snapshot no longer appear
He was the highest ranking Israeli fighter pilot to fall into enemy hands. He was tortured to death by his Syrian captors.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 931534491.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023 1 passage from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Israeli Air Force officer Avraham "Avi" Lanir (January 25, 1940 – October 1973) was a lieutenant colonel in the Israel Air Force . He was the highest-ranking Israeli fighter pilot to fall into enemy hands.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1166576156.
Today
In 2005 Wikipedia's first sentence called it “highest ranking israeli fighter pilot to fall into enemy hands”. Today it says “lieutenant colonel in the israel air force”. Read the current article and compare.
2010
2015
2020
Oct '23
2025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
What Wikipedia says this is
Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2010, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.
Then
highest ranking israeli fighter pilot to fall into enemy hands
Now
lieutenant colonel in the israel air force
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.
