Wikipedia:Today's featured article/Most viewed

This TFA STATS page is an attempt to recognise Wikipedia's most viewed today's featured articles. Articles are listed below based on page views surpassing 100,000 hits on the day of the article's appearance on the Main Page. Although Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was Wikipedia's first Featured Article to be featured on the Main Page, page view statistics were not tracked until December 2007. As a result, the page views listed below do not include TFAs from 2004 to 2007.

Please do not see this list as a competition, but rather a celebration of some of the most popular main page featured articles. The list may be helpful for determining correlations between reader views and topics featured on the main page, in relation to the date selected.

Rules

Statistics before September 2015 are based on Henrik's page view tool at http://stats.grok.se/, and statistics after October 2015 are based on ErrantX's DYK Stats tool at toollabs:dykstats/. The new tool is based on a Wikimedia API and includes mobile viewers.
As time will have passed since the article was TFA, the lead may also have changed. Click the "Today's featured article" link on the article's talk page, and copy the first few sentences of the blurb from there.
Include only a TFA that has had at least a hundred thousand views on the day it appeared on the main page.

300k+ hits

Article (TFA date)	TFA views	TFA blurb	FA nominator(s)
Elizabeth II (19 September 2022)	1,737,296 (717,992 the following day)	Elizabeth II (1926–2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death. The first child of the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth), she became heir presumptive when the duke became king in 1936 upon the abdication of Edward VIII. During the Second World War, she served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. She married Philip Mountbatten in 1947; they were wed for 73 years until his death in 2021.	Rockhead126 DrKay
Franz Kafka (3 July 2013)	768,586 (103,788 the following day)	Franz Kafka (1883–1924) was a German-language writer of novels and short stories, and is regarded as one of the most influential authors of the 20th century. His works, such as "Die Verwandlung" ("The Metamorphosis"), Der Process (The Trial), and Das Schloss (The Castle), are filled with themes and archetypes of alienation, brutality, parent–child conflict, and mystical transformations.	PumpkinSky Gerda Arendt
2012 phenomenon (20 December 2012)	748,040 (729,097 the following day)	The 2012 phenomenon comprises a range of eschatological beliefs according to which cataclysmic or transformative events will occur on 21 December 2012. This date is regarded as the end-date of a 5,125-year cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. It is suggested that the date marks the end of the world or a similar catastrophe.	Cosmic Latte PL Shii HRIN Top contributor Serendipodous
Barack Obama (4 November 2008)	620,700 (2.3 million the following day)	Barack Obama (born 1961) is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2008 United States presidential election.	Meelar Top contributor HailFire
United Airlines Flight 93 (11 September 2021)	564,404	United Airlines Flight 93 was a passenger flight that was hijacked by four al-Qaeda terrorists in 2001 as part of the September 11 attacks. The hijackers stormed the aircraft's cockpit and diverted it in the direction of Washington, D.C.. Passengers and flight attendants learned of the other 9/11 attacks and attempted to retake the plane. During the struggle, the hijackers deliberately crashed the plane near Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania; all 44 people on board were killed.	Veggies
Pluto (14 July 2015)	488,263	Pluto is a dwarf planet orbiting the Sun, with about a sixth of the mass of the Moon and a third of its volume. Like other Kuiper belt objects, which are generally outside Neptune's orbit, Pluto is primarily rock and ice. On 14 July 2015, a spacecraft is visiting the dwarf planet and its moons for the first time: the New Horizons probe is performing a flyby and attempting to take detailed measurements and images.	Watch37264 Top contributor JorisvS
Neil Armstrong (21 July 2019)	469,892	Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) was an astronaut and aeronautical engineer who was the first person to walk on the Moon. He was a United States Naval Aviator who served in the Korean War and later worked as a civilian test pilot for experimental aircraft. Armstrong joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in the second group, selected in 1962; he made his first spaceflight as command pilot of Gemini 8 in March 1966, becoming NASA's first civilian astronaut to fly in space. During this mission with pilot David Scott, he completed the first docking of two spacecraft. In July 1969, Armstrong and Apollo 11 Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin performed the first crewed Moon landing, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the command module.	Kees08 and Hawkeye7 Top contributor DannyS712
John Lennon (8 December 2010)	432,300	John Lennon (1940–1980) was an English musician and singer-songwriter who achieved worldwide fame as a founding member of the Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Born and raised in Liverpool, Lennon had a rebellious nature and acerbic wit.	DC Top contributor Andreasegde
John McCain (4 November 2008)	338,800	John McCain (born 1936) is the senior United States Senator from Arizona and presidential nominee of the Republican Party in the 2008 United States presidential election.	Ferrylodge Top contributors Anythingyouwant and Wasted Time R
Nick Drake (18–19 January 2012)	196,800 + 114,100 = 310,900 (Took place during the website's blackout)	Nick Drake (1948–1974) was an English singer-songwriter and musician, best known for his sombre guitar-based songs. He failed to find a wide audience during his lifetime, but now ranks among the most influential English singer-songwriters of the last 50 years.	Ceoil
Wife selling (1 April 2010)	307,600	Wife selling was a traditional English practice for ending an unsatisfactory marriage. Instead of dealing with an expensive and dragged-out divorce, a husband would take his wife to market and parade her with a halter around her neck, arm, or waist, before publicly auctioning her to the highest bidder.	Malleus Fatuorum, Parrot of Doom

200k+ hits

Article (TFA date)	Image	TFA views	TFA blurb	FA nominator(s)
Brie Larson (8 March 2019)		299,586	Brie Larson (born 1989) is an American actress and filmmaker who has received many awards and nominations. At age six, she became the youngest student admitted to a training program at the American Conservatory Theater. She began her acting career in 1998 with a comedy sketch in The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.	Krimuk2.0
Guy Fawkes (5 November 2019)