Talk:Hittite plague

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A fact from Hittite plague appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 21 March 2022 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Hittite plague in the 14th century BC was the first documented use of a disease as a biological weapon?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2022/March. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Hittite plague.

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Military history: Medieval

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	Medieval warfare task force (c. 500 – c. 1500)

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Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 21:52, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Comment or view
Article history

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... that the Hittite plague in the 14th century BC was the the first documented use of a disease as a biological weapon? Source: "...in what constitutes the first known record of biological warfare."
- ALT1: ... that in the 14th century BC the Hittites sent rams diseased with tularemia to infect their enemies? Source: "The historical documents hint that the Hittites... sent diseased rams to their enemies to weaken them with tularemia, a devastating bacterial infection"
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Bill Smyth (American football)

Created by Bruxton (talk). Self-nominated at 21:10, 8 March 2022 (UTC).[reply]

New enough, long enough, interesting article. Within policy, but article could use a little copyediting (still some broken sentences) and precision when referring to things ("it sometimes appears in Bulgaria" is not really the same as "remains a problem in some countries including Bulgaria"). QPQ done. I think the linking in ALT1 is a bit WP:EGGy, but mentioning the rams looks like a nice idea. @Bruxton, could you take a second look at the article and consider using the word "Hittite plague" in ALT1? —Kusma (talk) 09:19, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Kusma: Thank you for the review. I did some clean up on the prose - thanks for pointing that out. Regarding the hooks, I am presently trying to think of a new ALT. Personally, I feel like the catchiest hook would be ALT0 "first documented use of a biological weapon - it is hard to work rams in there. Reading the article would lead to the mode of transmission. But I am open to suggestions for hooks. Bruxton (talk) 15:57, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest we just stay with the original (your shortened version also works). Happy with the improvements.

—Kusma (talk) 16:06, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

ALT0 to T:DYK/P4

Tuleremia Hypothesis not supported

The tuleremia theory is only according to one paper in a terrible journal that has not been accepted. 2600:1002:B01D:55F:89F0:7BB9:E81F:36D (talk) 21:28, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Further to this several sources reject this theory. Notably Smith-Guzman et al. 2016 (doi: 10.1002/9781118962954.ch15). THe Tuleremia theory is first rejected by Martin-Serradilla and Guerrero-Peral. 2008 (doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2008.01.019) in a letter to the editor of Medical Hypothesis. Cactusphage (talk) 07:33, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]