Loading...With the knowledge of the entire world at our fingertips through the all-knowing and powerful Internet, it’s not surprising that relics like encyclopedias have fallen out of fashion. When you could look up the Vietnam War and get articles, documentaries and books to fill a lifetime on the topic, why would you drive all the way to a library to lug out a giant book to spend a boatload of time looking through page after page just to find a short, page to page and a half article on the Vietnam War.
And while the Internet is certainly an amazing feat of modern technology, I assume that not many people have thought too hard about the beginnings of the Internet’s predecessor, the encyclopedia. As it turns out, the origin story of the encyclopedia is way more interesting than you might think. From illegal activity to many prominent French enlightenment-era philosophers, the history of the encyclopedia is told in a very interesting and entertaining way in this great video by TED-Ed.