Case file
Siege of Jaffa
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “fought from 3 to 7 march 1799 between france and the ottoman empire”. Today it says “military engagement between the french army under napoleon bonaparte and ottoman forces under ahmed al-jazzar”. The one-line description Wikipedia serves to search engines and AI systems read “1799 siege during the French Campaign in Egypt and Syria”. It now reads “1799 siege during the French invasion of Egypt and Syria”.
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.
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The opening as it read in 2025
On March 3, 1799, the French laid siege to the city of Jaffa , which was under Ottoman control. It was fought from March 3 to 7, when French forces managed to capture the city.
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 1297047097.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “fought from 3 to 7 march 1799 between france and the ottoman empire”. Today it says “military engagement between the french army under napoleon bonaparte and ottoman forces under ahmed al-jazzar”. The one-line description Wikipedia serves to search engines and AI systems read “1799 siege during the French Campaign in Egypt and Syria”. It now reads “1799 siege during the French invasion of Egypt and Syria”. Read the current article and compare.
| 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | Oct '23 | 2025 |
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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
fought from 3 to 7 march 1799 between france and the ottoman empire
Now
military engagement between the french army under napoleon bonaparte and ottoman forces under ahmed al-jazzar
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.