IN 1968, ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA hosted a banquet in London’s Guildhall to celebrate its 200th birthday, with Prime Minister Harold Wilson among the 500 guests, and the Queen sending a telegram of congratulations. Not surprisingly, there was utter confidence that the 300th anniversary would be celebrated just as lavishly in 2068.
But that was only because, as Simon Garfield says in this suitably encyclopaedic book—written with all his usual wit and sharp eye for memorable facts—“the meteorite in the sky was
