Talk:Fall of Phnom Penh

Survey (lede)

• Is it "Fall" with a capital F or "fall"? If the former, then 2; if the latter, then 1. Some1 (talk) 01:22, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

  I don't think it's commonly capitalized. I also don't think that whether it's capitalized has anything to do with how we word a lede. What matters is that when a word in the title is self-explanatory, we don't devote the lede to reinventing the wheel for the reader's purported benefit.

  We have a fair amount of articles about, for instance, buildings or houses where the latter word is capitalized in the title. None of them do (or should say) something like "The X House is a historic house in ..."

  For a more direct parallel here, see the more recent Fall of the Assad regime, which begins: "On 8 December 2024, the Assad regime collapsed during a major offensive by opposition forces. I don't see any difference here. Daniel Case (talk) 02:08, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

  @Some1, I think you hit the nail on the head from an MOS perspective. If "Fall of Phnom Penh" is a proper noun, then "Fall ... was the fall" redundancy is consistent with the MOS. I don't think it is a proper noun which I think you lead you to #1. Would you please clarify your position?

  In 1995, more that 20 years after the fall of Saigon, the United States...-- NYTimes about the fall of Saigon

  Dw31415 (talk) 00:01, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

Support #1 reads more neutral and per Daniel Case 2 seems to violate MOS. IndrasBet (talk) 10:12, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Support #2 as major contributor to this GA. Mztourist (talk) 03:42, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

That's not a valid reason for a stylistic choice. Daniel Case (talk) 15:37, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

I think the strongest argument for #2 is that historical events are proper nouns. These are exceptions to the redundancy rule. Oxford English Dictionary is mentioned specifically in MOS. Similarly the Battle of Gettysburg begins “The Battle of Gettysburg was a three day battle“ Dw31415 (talk) 04:32, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

That to me is another one that should be changed, and the fact that it hasn't yet been does not make it relevant to this discussion. It's in the same vein as my historic-house example from earlier.

That lede has a lot of problems beside that. It tells us this was a three-day battle, and then redundantly gives us the date range from which that information could easily be deduced. It doesn't tell us what country the battle took place in. Or, more importantly, what war.

It would be better like this (Cites omitted):

The Battle of Gettysburg, part of the American Civil War, was fought by the Union and Confederate armies in and near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, United States, July 1–3, 1863.

Or even better if we were brave enough not to feel we had to force the title into the sentence:

From July 1 to July 3, 1863, the Union and Confederate armies fought a key battle of the American Civil War at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, United States

See how that combines the first two sentences? Daniel Case (talk) 04:49, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

I think the relevant part is that MOS:REDUNDANT has an explicit exception for proper nouns. You haven’t addressed that. Are historical events proper nouns? Shouldn’t the title be included in bold then? Dw31415 (talk) 15:15, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Sometimes they are; most "fall of"s are generally not, at least in every context. I have no problem with it being included in bold whether capitalized or not, as long as the sentence isn't too contorted.There is, as far as I can see, no blanket exception for proper nouns at REDUNDANCY, only the OED one, which has language specifically explaining that there's no way to get around reusing "dictionary", and shows how that works by qualifying it as the "principal historical dictionary" of English. And that exception is permissive, not mandatory. Daniel Case (talk) 02:10, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

User:Daniel Case stop WP:BLUDGEONING the process, you've commented enough. Mztourist (talk) 03:47, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Excuse me, Dw was asking me questions in response to my response. That's not what BLUDGEON is about. Daniel Case (talk) 03:58, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Look at how many times you've commented all over this RFC, that's BLUDGEONING. Mztourist (talk) 07:59, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

As this RFC was reopened and Users have been criticizing my almost month-old position above, I will spell it out in more detail. WP:MOSFIRST applies. "Fall of" has at least three slightly different meanings: (1) physical collapse of a structure e.g. the Fall of the Berlin Wall (both a structure and a system); (2) capture of a place (e.g. Singapore, Berlin, Phnom Penh, Saigon, Kabul etc.); (3) decline and collapse of a political system or empire (western Roman Empire, Assad Regime). MOSFIRST requires that the title is described. The only MOS:REDUNDANT wording in #2 is "Phnom Penh" which I regard as completely trivial, but as its apparently so offensive to some Users the wording can be changed to: "The Fall of Phnom Penh was the capture of the capital of the Khmer Republic (present-day Cambodia), by the Khmer Rouge on 17 April 1975, effectively ending the Cambodian Civil War." Fall of Phnom Penh is the WP:COMMONNAME for this event, though Fall is variously capitalized or uncapitalized. Mztourist (talk) 03:47, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

You give three definitions for Fall of (correct ones, imho) and point out what MOS:FIRST requires, but then follow that with a red herring about COMMONNAME, which while true is irrelevant, as COMMONNAME is about article titles, not the first sentence. MOS:FIRST requires a description of the topic identified by the title, but it does not require a definition of individual words in the title. Analyzing option #2 by stripping it down to its bare minimum of subject–copula–complement (plus required articles), we have: "The Fall was the capture." All this does is define the word fall, and that is not the role of the first sentence. If anything, the germanic-based noun fall (level A2, by some graded lexical corpuses) is much more likely to be understood by new English speakers than the Latinate capture (B2/C1; or see ngrams). So purely on a common sense basis, it makes little sense to define the simpler word in terms of the more advanced one. But even when a title word is rare or might need explanation, that is generally done via a link ("Mitochondrial replacement therapy ... is the replacement of mitochondria in one or more cells to prevent or ameliorate disease."), rather than defining title words in the first sentence. But the word Fall is a simple one and needs neither a link nor other explanation for readers to understand it. Mathglot (talk) 11:41, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Support #2 since the similar formula applied in Fall of Angkor, Fall of Constantinople, Fall of Baghdad (1917), Fall of Singapore and many others. Leemyongpak (talk) 14:40, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

"Fall of Angkor", "Fall of Angkor" and "Fall of Singapore"'s ledes aren't a valid comparison since they give BOLDALTNAMES. "Fall of Baghdad (1917)" is actually just like #2. Daniel Case (talk) 15:36, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

some others: Fall of Tenochtitlan, Fall of Antwerp, Fall of Manerplaw Leemyongpak (talk) 01:47, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

All of those are actually closer to #1. Daniel Case (talk) 01:49, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

Let's see the fifth opinion. Leemyongpak (talk) 02:14, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

@Leemyongpak, the RfC was reopened. I just wanted to point out that your !vote reads a little bit like OTHERSTUFFEXISTS and maybe discounted by a future closer. The outcome of this RfC might be used as precedent on other pages, so I recommend that you consider editing your position to explain if it's your read of MOS:FIRST/MOS:REDUNDANT that #2 is consistent with MOS of if there is another reason for your !vote. Dw31415 (talk) 00:24, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

At first I chose #2 mostly based my feeling. Now I know it was backed by MOS:FIRST so I keep my vote as it was. Leemyongpak (talk) 06:36, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

• Support #1: per MOS:REDUNDANT. Others have said it better than I so I’ll probably give a “per” after they respond here. Dw31415 (talk) 03:03, 22 November 2025 (UTC) Changed my vote below
• Support #1. MOS:REDUNDANT is a guideline which is widely observed. Exceptions exist, but they need to be spelled out based on some policy or guideline consideration. Saying "reason provided not sufficient" is no justification for a revert; that is merely another way of saying, "I just don't like it", and that counts for exactly nothing in an Rfc. Given strong enough evidence explaining why MOS:REDUNDANT doesn't apply here, I would change my vote, but the burden is clearly on the #2 supporters to provide the evidence, and so far, it has not been forthcoming. That leaves #1 as the only possible choice here. Mathglot (talk) 05:29, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

  Clarification: by 'only possible choice', I meant given only the two options at the top. I don't exclude other possible formulations, and would be fine with other wording, for example, the one proposed at 11:18, 22 Nov. by Nurg. Mathglot (talk) 10:13, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

• Support #1 as the simpler and sufficient solution unless the expression "fall of Phnom Penh" (whether with or without an initial capital letter) is widely used in reliable sources, in which case I would instead include it per #2. But that wide usage would have to be demonstrated first, and otherwise #1 seems entirely sufficient. Gawaon (talk) 08:19, 22 November 2025 (UTC) Even better, neither but instead the wording suggested by Srnec below or something close to it. Gawaon (talk) 09:19, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
• Neither. #2 fails MOS:REDUNDANT. Also, I think it should be "the fall of Phnom Penh", not "the Fall of Phnom Penh", just as the article mentions "the fall of Neak Luong", and Fall of Saigon has "the fall of Saigon" and "the fall of Da Nang". So, the article title is descriptive, and thus the first sentence can be an exception to the preference for the page title being its subject. #1 has its own issues. It starts like it could be the start of the "Phnom Penh" article. Plus the sentence is in the passive voice. Both sentences are loaded with an overly long description of what Phnom Penh is. Given that the capital hasn't changed since its fall, it can be simplified. Neither sentence states explicitly whom the city was captured from, which is an odd omission. I assume from "in present-day Cambodia" that the border of the Khmer Republic was non-trivially smaller than the present border – is that right or wrong?

The main objective should be a well-written, natural-sounding sentence, not one written for WP's ticks, such as an awkward-sounding sentence with the page title as its subject.

Here's an alternative:

The Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, from the Khmer Republic government on 17 April 1975, effectively ending the Cambodian Civil War.

That's just a suggestion. If someone can come up with a good sentence that has the page title as the subject, that would be fine. I've had a quick try and came close but wasn't fully satisfied with it. Nurg (talk) 11:18, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

This variant sounds good too. Gawaon (talk) 11:20, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

I generally like the construction Victor captured City for these articles since it eliminates passive voice. Possible alternative is Saigon fell to the NVA. Dw31415 (talk) 11:49, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

Neither of those constructions comply with TITLEABSENTBOLD. Daniel Case (talk) 04:30, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Or “The Fall of Saigon marked the end of the Vietnam War.” (As an example) Dw31415 (talk) 16:27, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

There is more than one option for resolving it. We can use a slightly different form of the article title and boldface it to cater to the preference for that format, in this manner:

Phnom Penh fell on 17 April 1975 when the Khmer Rouge captured it from the Khmer Republic government, effectively ending the Cambodian Civil War. The Khmer Rouge surrounded Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia and one of the last remaining strongholds of the Khmer Republic, at the beginning of April, making it totally dependent on aerial resupply through Pochentong Airport.

Nurg (talk) 21:08, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

Other than not conforming with TITLEABSENTBOLD, I have no problem with that either. Daniel Case (talk) 04:33, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

I was thinking of "the page title [...] may appear in a slightly different form" at MOS:LEADSENTENCE, and that "Phnom Penh fell" is "Fall of Phnom Penh" in a slightly different form, and therefore it is allowable to bold it. Nurg (talk) 08:22, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

It seems that MOS:FIRST is silent on the subject of whether "a slightly different form" can/should be bolded. I think a) that creates unnecessary confusion on readers' part and b) if you feel you have to use a slightly different form of the title for some reason, that's probably a sign that you shouldn't be using any variation of the title in the sentence. Daniel Case (talk) 22:49, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

@Nurg, would you please consider the proper noun MOS exception I mention above with the Oxford dictionary example in MOS? Dw31415 (talk) 15:32, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking. Like you, I am treating "fall of Phnom Penh" as not being a proper name. If it is a proper name, that makes a difference. Nurg (talk) 23:40, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

After a little googling, it seems like historical events names are proper nouns (like the Battle of Gettysburg), but what’s a good RS to answer that question? Dw31415 (talk) 03:37, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Some historical events are referred to by proper names, some are not, and others are treated differently by different writers. Mztourist has since said "Fall is variously capitalized or uncapitalized", so this topic falls into that 3rd category. You're right to ask about reliable sources. I used to assume there was some set English grammar 'rule' (or 'rules') about proper names, but now I think that some cases vary and that at WP we go by the reliable sources. I don't know what the majority of good sources do in this case. (I do note that only a couple of the articles in Category:City captures use a capitalised proper name.) Nurg (talk) 10:50, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

• Prefer #1, without prejudice to the possibility that there might be some still better wording. For historical events we should not strain to repeat the article title when it doesn't make for a natural sentence. --Trovatore (talk) 21:17, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
  • Possible alternative I think the clunkiness of option 2 comes from two things: First, insisting on calling an event by a fixed name, and then second, using a form of the verb "to be" to define it. As I see it this rarely leads to elegant wording for historical events. If it is desired to name the event rather than just describing it, we could say The fall of Phnom Penh occurred on 17 April 1975, when the Khmer Rouge captured Cambodia's capital city Phnom Penh, effectively ending the Cambodian Civil War. The second occurrence of "Phnom Penh" in the above is optional; it's really just there to have a place to link the city article without using a pipe, but that could be done instead at the first later occurrence of the city name. --Trovatore (talk) 21:28, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
• Support #1, as my all arguments here otherwise make clear and as other editors have said in support. Daniel Case (talk)
• Oppose #2 on the basis of MOS:REDUNDANCY for reasons I have detailed elsewhere. While fall may have several meanings (per the argument of Mztourist), context in the lead establishes which meaning is being used. It is therefore not a justification to use synonyms to introduce redundancy/tautology into the first sentence. There are many options by which a better first sentenced might be crafted and a couple have been suggested. I would tend to prefer the following option (let's call it option 3) proposed by Nurg:

The Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, from the Khmer Republic government on 17 April 1975, effectively ending the Cambodian Civil War.

I believe it conforms well with the guidance of MOS:FIRST: succinctly identifying the key points (who, what, when and why) in an active voice. Cinderella157 (talk) 09:06, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

This would, I think, ultimately be the best solution, per MOS:TITLEABSENTBOLD, as this is the most natural sentence, what I was doing with my original edit.

Now, if we had adopted a lede format like (at least in my experience; there may well be others that do this) the Polish Wikipedia, in which it would read something like this:

Fall of Phnom Penh — On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge captured the capital of the Khmer Republic in present-day Cambodia, effectively ending the country's civil war.

That would make the boldface question moot. But we don't do this (I think the main reason they do it at plwiki is something cultural, like that being a customary format for encyclopedia articles in that language) and we are not likely to start anytime soon. Daniel Case (talk) 20:29, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

• Neither, but lean towards use of boldface per Option 2. Why is there any boldface in the lead ever? I believe the idea is that the article text itself (what you edit in the edit window) should be like an encyclopedia entry entire of itself. These normally begin with the headword in bold. I agree that the redundancy can be jarring and not all descriptive titles benefit from being in the lead in bold, but surely there is a reason behind the use of boldface. "Sometimes a little redundancy is unavoidable." I would use a variation of Nurg's second proposal:

The fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge took place on 17 April 1975, effectively ending the Cambodian Civil War. The Khmer Rouge surrounded Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia and one of the last remaining strongholds of the Khmer Republic government, at the beginning of April, making it totally dependent on aerial resupply through Pochentong Airport.

To me, this better aligns with the guidelines taken in total. Srnec (talk) 15:15, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, something like that would be fine too. Gawaon (talk) 09:16, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Not bad. I would use "occurred" rather than "took place", which is better used for pre-arranged events. I note Trovatore used "occurred" in his suggestion. Nurg (talk) 10:26, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

If going with something like this, then occurred is better than took place, but neither is needed, and I find briefer is better here. This becomes:

The fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge on 17 April 1975 effectively ended the Cambodian Civil War.   . . .

Mathglot (talk) 21:36, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

I think this is losing too much substance from the first sentence. On a second look, the same goes for Srnec's suggestion, which looks more substantial, but only because it uses more words. But, pursuing the aim of being able to bold the title in the first sentence, I have a fresh idea, as follows. Nurg (talk) 00:36, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

I don't think it is. Compare these two:

• The fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge took place on 17 April 1975, effectively ending the Cambodian Civil War.
• The fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge on 17 April 1975 effectively ended the Cambodian Civil War.

What substance is it losing? As I see it, it merely says the same thing in fewer words. Mathglot (talk) 02:39, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

True. But neither sentence mentions the Khmer Republic government, which seems to me a fundamental element of the topic. Nurg (talk) 07:08, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

I quite agree, and that was uppermost in my mind after seeing your version. I didn't spend the time to think about how to incorporate it, but I should certainly support a version including it if you (or anyone) can manage a sentence that flows smoothly and doesn't seem too packed. Mathglot (talk) 07:33, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

How about this, if starting with the article title is deemed very important:

The fall of Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975 occurred when Khmer Rouge forces captured Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, from the Khmer Republic government, effectively ending the Cambodian Civil War.

Nurg (talk) 19:50, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

That seems to revive the kind of awkward redundancy that started all this, but now instead of being focused on fall, it's focused on Phnom Penh. How is this better than live? Mathglot (talk) 20:04, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

It's better because it doesn't start with "The Fall of Phnom Penh was the capture of Phnom Penh". I'm not pushing it as my preferred wording, but it caters to those who want the sentence to start with the article title, but in a less awkward way. Nurg (talk) 00:29, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

• New alternative – rename article. What about renaming the article Siege of Phnom Penh? Firstly, the main section of the article, headed "Offensive", covers the events from late March to 17 April 1975, not just the fall on that last day. Serendipitously, it is easier to start the first sentence with this title and do so in a natural-sounding way. Here is an example. I haven't tried to finesse the wording to the ultimate extent, but it shows the idea.

The siege of Phnom Penh took place from late March to mid April 1975, during the Cambodian Civil War, when the Khmer Rouge surrounded the capital of Cambodia, then held by the Khmer Republic government. The siege ended with the fall of Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975, which effectively ended the war.

Note to careful readers: I used "took place" rather than "occurred" in this case because the siege was a deliberate action by the Khmer Rouge, whereas the fall may or may not have occurred. Nurg (talk) 00:36, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

This is an Rfc about the first sentence. Your proposal may be related, but is different, and should be implemented as a WP:Requested move, if you wish to continue down that path. If you do, this Rfc should be immediately suspended, as it would be a waste of time for editors to continue discussing the form of a first sentence under the assumption that the topic is the "fall", when perhaps we may be talking about a "siege" if the move is successful. As a quick note, historians generally do not use the word siege for reasons that I believe would come out in the move discussion, but are out of scope here. Mathglot (talk) 02:49, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Considering that such a move request would likely fail, as you hint, I see no reason why it should affect this open RfC. (If it were to succeed, that would be a different matter, of course.) Gawaon (talk) 04:24, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Oh, I totally agree with you, Mathglot, that a firm proposal would go through a WP:Requested move. Apologies if my intent was not clear. I have made a suggestion, not a firm proposal. It's up for discussion. If there was strong support for it at the end of a discussion, someone (likely not me, to be frank) might initiate a WP:Requested move. Your comment that "historians generally do not use the word siege" is interesting feedback, although you don't elaborate. Looking at the list of all articles by title, it seems to me that we have many more articles starting with "Siege of" than starting with "Fall of", though that may be a grossly simplistic comparison, or I might be simply wrong about that. Nurg (talk) 07:08, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

The simple answer is that not all besieged cities fall into the hands of the enemy (though admittedly most do in modern times), and not all cities that fall to the enemy were besieged (very few were). But such questions should not be decided by what Wikipedia has to say about it. Regarding the use of the word siege, I was referring exclusively to the topic of this article; apologies for any confusion. Mathglot (talk) 07:52, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

I see. Is there a term other than 'siege' that is commonly used for what happened from late March to mid April 1975? I take it from the article that 'fall' is generally used for what happened on 17 April 1975 only. Nurg (talk) 10:25, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

The COMMONNAME of this event is the Fall of Phnom Penh, I have never heard of it being called the siege of Phnom Penh, nor seen RS that support that. Phnom Penh was effectively under siege since at least August 1973 when the US stopped bombing. Mztourist (talk) 11:34, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

It's not unheard of, but it is very much the minority. Mathglot (talk) 11:43, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

+1 It seems like military actions that get remembered historically as sieges get remembered that way because those actions last a certain amount of time ... I've been working a bit lately on Siege of Port Arthur, which lasted half a year before the city fell (not because of a battle, but because the Russian general surrendered), and of course there's Siege of Sarajevo, which lasted a few years (and did not end with the besieging army taking the city or indeed any significant battle).

I think we can best analogize Phnom Penh with the Alamo ... Santa Anna laid siege to it initially, the most advantageous move he could have made, but after 10 days and against the advice of his subordinates decided to go in, kick ass and take names because he wanted to show his political rivals that he was bold and decisive. No one refers to the "siege of the Alamo". Daniel Case (talk) 22:36, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

We have an article at siege of the Alamo. Srnec (talk) 02:16, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Which has a hatnote distinguishing it from the article about the battle. If wanted we could have a separate article on the siege of Phnom Penh, just like that. Daniel Case (talk) 04:32, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

We could have a separate article on the siege but would we want to? This article has readable prose size of 3,600 words, which is quite modest, so no need to split on the basis of size. If we wanted an article named for the siege, it would be better to rename this one than split it. However, I note the comment of Mztourist (who knows more about the topic than me) about non-use of the term "siege of Phnom Penh". Nurg (talk) 06:21, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Not quite non-use, but about 30 times less common, so pretty much. Mathglot (talk) 10:51, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

+1 Let's stick with discussing the lede here. Daniel Case (talk) 22:50, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

• Weak Support #1: I prefer avoiding the redundancy but I do not think it is a MOS:REDUNDANT violation and wanted to change my !vote to reflect that. In my opinion, historical events are proper nouns. REDUNDANT has an explicit exception for this. I think this is an important clarification because of the implications for the many articles in this project, like Battle of Gettysburg

The Oxford English Dictionary is a dictionary of the English language.

consider:

The Oxford English Dictionary is the principal historical dictionary of the English language.

Thanks for reading the nuance I wanted to add Dw31415 (talk) 02:35, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

As noted at REDUNDANCY that exception exists because there's no easy and natural way to avoid reusing "dictionary" in that sentence even assuming (correctly) that enough people know what one is. Whereas it is very easy to simply give details about the fall of Phnom Penh without having to use a synonym for "fall". REDUNDANCY does not have "an explicit exception" for proper nouns; it only says "Sometimes a little redundancy is unavoidable" and notes that there's no way to avoid using the OED's proper name in the lede. "Try to rephrase whenever possible" is what's operative here. Daniel Case (talk) 07:37, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

We can just as easily rephrase to retain the title in boldface as to avoid it. My argument is that in the case of a title of this form, we should do that. Why? Dw31415 has pointed to it: because titles of this form (e.g., Battle of Gettysburg) are common as names that cannot be avoided. If we can figure out what to do in those cases it should not be a problem to do so here. Srnec (talk) 14:51, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Dw31415, let me put something to the test here. The death of JFK is a historical event that occurred in 1963. If you think that all historical events have proper names, what do you think is the proper name for that one? Nurg (talk) 10:43, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

@Nurg, sorry for the late reply. I googled "JFK Assassination" and the top entries were not capitalized. I can't give you a good reason why that's different from Cuban Missile Crisis, The Great Depression, or Battle of the Buldge. Dw31415 (talk) 20:31, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

As I said earlier, "Some historical events are referred to by proper names, some are not, and others are treated differently by different writers." I suggest that the death of JFK is one of many, many historical events that are not usually referred to by a proper name. Nurg (talk) 01:49, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

Discussion (lede)

• I reverted my closure on advice at Wikipedia:DfD Dw31415 (talk) 23:46, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

  Was this RfC ever opened WP:RFCOPEN? What to do about that now? Dw31415 (talk) 14:24, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

  The RFC was opened on 23 August 2025. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:10, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

  Thanks! I’m glad to see the history tag there, I don’t know how I missed it. Dw31415 (talk) 19:44, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

  I'll list for closure, take 2. Dw31415 (talk) 20:32, 23 December 2025 (UTC)