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Case file

Marcel Marceau

Wikipedia's first sentence called it “well-known mime and among the most popular representatives of this art form world-wide”. Today it says “french mime artist and actor most famous for his stage persona”. The one-line description Wikipedia serves to search engines and AI systems read “French mime and actor”. It now reads “French mime artist (1923–2007)”.
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. 1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2005

Marcel Marceau (born March 22 , 1923 ) is a well-known mime and among the most popular representatives of this art form world-wide. He was born Marcel Mangel in Strasbourg , France . After having seen Charlie Chaplin he became interested in acting and from 1946 on he studied at the Sarah-Bernhardt-Theatre in Paris with teachers like Charles Dullin and Étienne Decroux (who was also the teacher of Jean-Louis Barrault ). At 15 his Jewish family was forced to flee their home as France entered the second World War. He later joined Charles De Gaulle 's Free French Army and, because of his excellent English, worked as a liaison officer with Patton's army. He was married three times and has four children. In 1947 he performed for the very first time as BIP, his tragicomic figure with silk dented hat and red flower. In his career he performed all over the world in order to spread the "art of silence" ( L'art du silence ). In 1978 he established his own school in Paris: "École Internationale de Mimodrame de Paris, Marcel Marceau". In 1996 he established the Marceau Foundation to promote mime in the United States. He appeared in several films including the 1968 film Barbarella and appeared as himself to speak the only word ("Non") in the 1976 comedy film, Silent Movie . He wrote and illustrated several books translated in up to 7 languages (eg. the history of BIP) and obtained many honours in France and USA (eg. His last world tour took place covered the United States in 2004 and returned to Europe in 2005.1

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 17842064.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “well-known mime and among the most popular representatives of this art form world-wide”. Today it says “french mime artist and actor most famous for his stage persona”. The one-line description Wikipedia serves to search engines and AI systems read “French mime and actor”. It now reads “French mime artist (1923–2007)”. Read the current article and compare.
2005201020152020Oct '232025
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

well-known mime and among the most popular representatives of this art form world-wide

Now

french mime artist and actor most famous for his stage persona

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.

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