Why does Wikipedia's Bitcoin entry imply Satoshi's whitepaper is from May 2009? The first citation in Wikipedia's Bitcoin article is of Satoshi's original whitepaper. It is worded:


  Nakamoto, Satoshi (24 May 2009). "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System". Retrieved 20 December 2012.


Satoshi's whitepaper was released on 1 Nov 2008, not on 2009.

What am I missing here? Did anything relevant happen at 24 May 2009? Is this a factual error in the Wikipedia entry? (It's there for a long time, so it's not any recent vandalism).
That is clearly incorrect. His whitepaper was released on October 31st, 2008 via the metzdowd mailing list


  Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper
  
  Satoshi Nakamoto satoshi at vistomail.com
  Fri Oct 31 14:10:00 EDT 2008
  
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  I've been working on a new electronic cash system that's fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.
  
  The paper is available at: http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
  
  The main properties:  Double-spending is prevented with a peer-to-peer
  network.  No mint or other trusted parties.  Participants can be
  anonymous.  New coins are made from Hashcash style proof-of-work.  The
  proof-of-work for new coin generation also powers the
      network to prevent double-spending.
  
  Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
  
  Abstract.  A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would
  allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another
  without the burdens of going through a financial institution. Digital
  signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are
  lost if a trusted party is still required to prevent double-spending. 
  We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a
  peer-to-peer network.  The network timestamps transactions by hashing
  them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a
  record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work.  The
  longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events
  witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power. 
  As long as honest nodes control the most CPU power on the network,
  they can generate the longest chain and outpace any attackers.  The
  network itself requires minimal structure.  Messages are broadcasted
  on a best effort basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at
  will, accepting the longest proof-of-work chain as proof of what
  happened while they were gone.
  
  Full paper at: http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
  
  Satoshi Nakamoto


He realeased Bitcoin v0.1 on Thu Jan 8 14:27:40 EST 2009 -- more than 2 months later. By May, he had ceased all communication on the mailing list.