Encyclopedia Britannica: All the world at your fingertips Two hundred and fifty years ago, in Edinburgh, Scotland, a printer, an engraver, and an editor teamed up to produce the first Encyclopedia Britannica, which contained scholarly essays and short definitional entries about practically everything. It was a revolution in information. But now that we have instant access to all knowledge from throughout human history via our smartphones, what would kids today think of the encyclopedia, which now encompasses 44 million words, in books? Luke Burbank reports.