Wikipedia Launches: The Free Encyclopedia Era Begins
A radical experiment in collective knowledge burst onto the internet: Wikipedia. Two guys—Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger—believed anyone could write an encyclopedia. And they meant anyone. No credentials required. Just curiosity, research skills, and an internet connection. Imagine: A global community building human understanding, one edit at a time. Volunteers from Tokyo to Toronto collaborating on everything from quantum physics to pop culture trivia. Radical democratization of information. No gatekeepers. Just shared human curiosity.
January 15, 2001
25 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on January 15
Thirteen thousand starving people. A city under total blockade. Nebuchadrezzar's Babylonian armies didn't just want Jerusalem—they wanted to crush the spirit of…
He lasted 95 days. A former playboy and Nero's wingman, Otho seized the imperial throne through pure audacity—murdering his predecessor Galba in broad daylight …
A king who couldn't get divorced. So he invented his own church. Henry VIII simply rewrote the religious rulebook to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, …
A royal charter scrawled on parchment, and suddenly Canada becomes a divine real estate project. Francis I handed Roberval 50,000 square miles of frozen wildern…
She was twenty-five and unmarried, inheriting a throne torn apart by religious wars. Elizabeth stepped into Westminster Abbey knowing she'd have to outsmart eve…
Russia ceded Livonia and Estonia to Poland, altering the balance of power in Eastern Europe and marking a significant shift in territorial control during a peri…
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