Talk:White bear of Henry III

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A fact from White bear of Henry III appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 8 September 2024 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that in 1253 Henry III of England ordered that his white bear (sculpture pictured) be permitted to swim and hunt in the River Thames?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2024/September. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/White bear of Henry III.

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 AirshipJungleman29 talk 16:27, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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Article history

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Modern sculpture of Henry's bear

... that in 1253 Henry III of England ordered that his white bear (sculpture pictured) be permitted to swim and hunt in the Thames?

Source: "they also had to suffer the indignity of one of Henry’s off-hand sets of instructions when he decided that the bear should be capable of providing for itself. The sheriffs were told to create a stout muzzle and chain so that the animal’s Norwegian handler could control the bear when leading him out of the tower down to the River Thames. Also, a long rope to control the bear when he was in the water having a wash and fishing for himself." from: Bibby, Miriam. "King Henry III's Polar Bear". Historic UK. Retrieved 20 July 2024.; the date of Henry's order is given in Stow, John (1733). A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, Borough of Southwark, and Parts Adjacent. T. Read. pp. 69–70.

ALT1: ... that in 1252 Henry III of England was gifted a white bear (sculpture pictured) by Haakon IV of Norway? Source: "Among the many marvels the visitor to London could experience in the 1250s was the “pale” or “white” bear presented to Henry III by King Haakon of Norway." from: Bibby, Miriam. "King Henry III's Polar Bear". Historic UK. Retrieved 20 July 2024. and "the lions were joined by a polar bear in 1252" from: "The Tower of London Menagerie". Historic Royal Palaces. Retrieved 20 July 2024.
Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Valentin Houinato

Moved to mainspace by Dumelow (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 861 past nominations.

Dumelow (talk) 12:32, 25 July 2024 (UTC).[reply]

Hello Dumelow, I'm a first-time DYK reviewer and I'll be reviewing this. It looks interesting so far and I'll give additional comments soon. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 18:18, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Article was nominated 5 days after creation, so it passes the newness check.
Article is exceeds 1,500 bytes, so it passes the minimum length check.
Sources look reliable. I see that most of them were authored by people who specialize in history, which I presume are qualified and reputable enough for this subject. Earwig shows no obvious plagiarism.
1. Background section: I see that ref [1] doesn't have an online link provided. I did a quick search on Google and found this PDF for that ref. I think it's worth adding that PDF's URL to ref [1]. Ref [2] covers most of the content in that section, although I think it should be put next to the second sentence since it doesn't mention anything about 1834.
Hook only has one link, so the presentability rule does not apply here.
Hook is adequately cited with sources used in the article.
Both hooks are interesting. I personally prefer the main hook.
Images are public domain and are recognizable at low resolution. Captions are descriptive and succinct.
QPQ has been done by nom.
There's a few grammatically unclear sentences I would like to point out. Namely:
1. From then until 1834 animals were kept in the menageries continuously until 1834 - repetition of 1834.
2. Henry was shocked by the expense of keeping the bear so [he] delegated its upkeep to... - add "he"?
3. The sheriffs['] allowance of four sous a day - add a possessive apostrophe and wikilink "sous" for the layperson like me?

Other than some issues I've pointed out, the nomination is looking good! Since I'm a new reviewer, I'll have to request a second opinion from another reviewer. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 19:15, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Nrco0e, thanks for the review and sorry for delay in getting back to you, I have been away. Good work finding that source online, I've added it and hopefully addressed your other points by improvements to the article - Dumelow (talk) 11:57, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Chiming in here as a second opinion. Article is new enough, long enough, and well sourced. Earwig was down for me so I'm assuming good faith on the previous reviewer's check and my own spot check showed no issues. QPQ done, image is in PD. Both hooks are sourced, though I believe ALT0 to be the more interesting of the two by a fair margin. Nice work on an well-written article, Dumelow, and on your first DYK review, Nrco0e. This is good for the main page. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 23:57, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No mention of Albinism?

What do the sources say about the possibility of it being albino? Albino bears do exist. Polygnotus (talk) 02:12, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It does mention it: Alternative explanations, such as unusually-coloured specimens of the Eurasian brown bear, would likely not have been considered sufficiently regal a gift.. — Alien333 ( what I did
why I did it wrong ) 09:35, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]