A fact from Stairs Expedition to Katanga appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 12 May 2007. The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that the Stairs Expedition to Katanga (William Stairs pictured) was the winner in a race between two Victorian-era imperial powers to seize a vast mineral-rich territory in central Africa, which it achieved by assassinating the African king Msiri? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/May.

This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Africa: Zambia This article is within the scope of WikiProject Africa, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Africa on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AfricaWikipedia:WikiProject AfricaTemplate:WikiProject AfricaAfrica articles ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by WikiProject Zambia.

Well done Rexparry sydney, this is not far off Good article status. -- Camptown 15:39, 12 May 2007 (UTC) reply

• Captain Stairs' diaries are a primary source which I couldn't locate, it would be good if someone could check them, primary sources for the article at present are the book by Moloney, excerpts from De Bonchamps' journal in the Pont-Jest article, and a letter from Stairs to Arnot, all included in the references. Stairs' diaries are in the Public Archives of Nova Scotia and were published in Hon. Roy MacLaren, African Exploits : The Diaries of William Stairs, 1887-1892, (1998) McGill-Queen's University Press ( ISBN  0-7735-1640-9) & Liverpool University Press ( ISBN  0-85323-722-0). In particular, did Stairs write anything about the decapitation of Msiri's corpse and the fate of the head?
• An illustration of Msiri. The one on the Kingmsiri website is, I think, a modern painting (the clothing looks modern), but perhaps the missionaries or members of other expeditions made sketches which have been published.
• What happened to Msiri's head? Was it taken back to Europe as some in Katanga think?

Thanks to editors for copy-editing and tidying up the article. Rexparry sydney 04:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC) reply