Short answers, pulled from the story.
The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was published between December 1768 and August 1771. This initial run consisted of three volumes and 2,391 pages printed in Edinburgh by Scottish printers Colin Macfarquhar and Andrew Bell.
William Smellie wrote nearly every article for the first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica with only minor assistance from James Anderson. Smellie was later honored on his tombstone as the editor of the first edition.
The ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica published between 1875 and 1889 is considered the most scholarly and is known as the Scholar's Edition. This edition was overseen by Thomas Spencer Baynes and featured contributions from experts like James Clerk Maxwell and Thomas Huxley.
The Encyclopædia Britannica announced in March 2012 that it would no longer publish printed editions. The 2010 15th edition was the last print version, with the final copies selling out by late April 2012 after 245 years of print publication.
The 2005 Nature study found 123 factual errors, omissions, or misleading statements in the Encyclopædia Britannica. This resulted in an average of 2.92 mistakes per article compared to 3.86 mistakes per article for Wikipedia.
Paul T. Armstrong is the longest working employee of the Encyclopædia Britannica having begun his career in 1934. He served as treasurer, vice president, and chief financial officer for 58 years before retiring in 1992.