Harold Harefoot

About Harold Harefoot

Harold Harefoot was a short-lived but significant figure in early English history, reigning as King of England from 1035 until his death in 1040. As the son of Cnut the Great, his reign was marked by internal struggles for power, particularly with his half-brother Harthacnut, which ultimately kept his rule unstable and confined mostly to the south of England. Despite this constrained authority, his legacy is recognized by the Pantheon project, which assigns him a Historical Popularity Index (HPI) rank of \#773 among influential figures worldwide, indicating a notable, if perhaps regionally focused, impact.

In terms of modern digital attention, Harold Harefoot occupies a significant historical gap. His HPI rank suggests a moderate level of historical importance, yet his annualized Wikipedia pageviews for 2025 were just 246K. This places his online visibility on par with his historical importance, as his Attention Gap ratio is approximately 1x, meaning he received the expected level of attention relative to his global cultural impact score. This level of attention is dwarfed by contemporaries in the same field, such as William the Conqueror (\#934 importance) who garnered 3.0M views, or even Naruhito (\#978 importance) with 1.4M views in 2025.

Observing the short-term trend, the data suggests his already modest online presence is rapidly shrinking. Harold Harefoot saw a significant year-over-year decrease in interest of -64.1% in 2025, alongside a -15% drop in momentum when comparing Q1 to Q3 traffic, indicating a clear downward trend in modern curiosity about the second King of England from the House of Wessex.