December 6: The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was published (1768)

The first edition of
the Encyclopædia Britannica

The Encyclopædia Britannica is the oldest English-language encyclopaedia still in print. Its first edition was published in 1768. The encyclopaedia has been issued in 15 editions so far. It had been an excellent and popular reference before the Internet era. Though there were criticisms like outdated information, bias opinions, often lack of expertise, the encyclopaedia enjoyed its status as one of the most authoritative sources of knowledge and information. Authors or contributors of the encyclopaedia have include authorities like Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, and Leon Trotsky. Nowadays, web-based reference services based on mass-sourcing, such as Wikipedia and Encarta, are dominating the reference market and this trend makes the survival of off-line only reference media extremely difficult.