Template:Did you know nominations/Balfour Mission

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 Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:28, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Balfour Mission[edit]

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... that during the Balfour Mission 100 years ago, Arthur Balfour became the first Englishman to address both houses of the U.S. Congress?

Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/2017 state visit of the United States to the United Kingdom

Created by Oncenawhile (talk). Self-nominated at 09:30, 22 April 2017 (UTC).

Article is new, long enough, and within policy on sourcing, neutrality and plagiarism. Hook is short, cited and somewhat interesting. I would change "Congress" to "U.S. Congress" for the sake of our international readers. QPQ has been completed. Sounder Bruce 07:08, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. I have added "U.S." above, so it's ready to go. Oncenawhile (talk) 08:27, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

The source you are using for him being the first Englishman says he addressed a "joint session of Congress", but other sources say he addressed the House and the Senate on different days. Yoninah (talk) 21:55, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Archived articles from The Seattle Times in 1909 (probably from an AP newsline) say that Balfour addressed the House and Senate on separate days. No mention of being the first Englishman to address both House and Senate. Sounder Bruce 23:17, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Hi Yoninah and SounderBruce, in addition to those in the article, here are some other sources on the topic:

p.104 says he attended a joint session of congress on 5 May
p.76: "A few days later Balfour addressed a joint session of Congress, the first Englishman ever to do so"
p.524: "Mr. Balfour has the honour of being the first Englishman to address Congress"

The reason I didn't use the term "joint session" in the hook is that p.25+32 of the official Senate review of the mission says he attended the House of Reps on the 5th and the Senate on the 8th. Although all the other sources are WP:RS, this feels even more authoritative given its contemporary timing and its official status. So I wrote the hook in a way that agrees with all the sources without contradicting any of them. Oncenawhile (talk) 23:19, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

But addressing the different houses of Congress on different days, and addressing a joint session of Congress, are two different things. Yoninah (talk) 22:16, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

@Yoninah: they both correctly fall under the phrase "address both houses", which doesn't refer to timing. So the hook fits. Oncenawhile (talk) 00:33, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

OK. Restoring tick per SounderBruce's review. Yoninah (talk) 15:06, 4 May 2017 (UTC)