Wikipedia's first sentence called it “american-born author”. Today it says “american presidential historian and a popular commentator on politics and other issues”.
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 2005 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 2005
Gil Troy is an American-born author.1He received his graduate and PhD education from Harvard University , and currently is a professor of History at McGill University in Montreal , Canada .2
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 16376113.
The opening as it stood in 2010 1 passage from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Gil Troy is an American academic.Troy is Professor of History at McGill University in Montreal and a Visiting Scholar affiliated with the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington.Troy is a native of Queens, New York.He received his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from Harvard University.After receiving his Ph.D in History in 1988, he taught History and Literature at Harvard for two years.In September 1990, Troy became an assistant professor of history at McGill University.In 1995, Troy was promoted to Associate Professor and granted tenure.From 1997 to 1998 he served as chairman of McGill's history department.In March, 1999 he was promoted to Full Professor.Maclean's magazine has repeatedly labeled him one of McGill's "Popular Profs" and the History News Network designated him one of its first 12 "Top Young Historians." His brother is Tevi Troy .Professor Troy serves on advisory panel of scholars for the History News Network , an independent non-profit corporation hosted by George Mason University , including also other academic historians Pauline Maier and Joyce Appleby .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 363340975.
The opening as it stood in 2015 11 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Gil Troy (born 1961) is an American presidential historian and a Zionist activist.Troy is the author of eight books, and the editor of two.His articles have appeared in The New York Times , The New Republic and other major media outlets.He is Editor-at-Large of the "Open Zion" blog on The Daily Beast , and a columnist for The Jerusalem Post .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 666622717.
The opening as it stood in 2020 1 passage from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Gil Troy (born 1961) is an American presidential historian and a popular commentator on politics and other issues.He is Professor of History at McGill University and a 2015 visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution .Troy is the author of nine books, and the editor of two. His articles have appeared in The New York Times , The New Republic and other major media outlets. He writes a column for The Daily Beast on Forgotten history, putting current events in historical perspective and is a columnist for The Jerusalem Post .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 896624977.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023 2 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
American historian, author, and scholar Gil Troy (born 1961) is an American presidential historian and a popular commentator on politics and other issues.He is a professor of history at McGill University . Troy is the author of nine books, and the editor of two. He writes a column for The Daily Beast on forgotten history, putting current events in historical perspective and is a columnist for The Jerusalem Post .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1163093065.
The opening as it stood in 2025
American historian, author, and scholar Gil Troy (born 1961) is an American presidential historian and a popular commentator on politics and other issues. He is a professor of history at McGill University . Troy is the author of twelve books, and the editor of two. He writes a column for The Daily Beast on forgotten history, putting current events in historical perspective and is a columnist for The Jerusalem Post .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1295052854. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “american-born author”. Today it says “american presidential historian and a popular commentator on politics and other issues”. Read the current article and compare.
2005
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 2005, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.
Then
american-born author
Now
american presidential historian and a popular commentator on politics and other issues
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.