Video: 'Wikipedia - Behind the Encyclopedia'

(Monday, January 15, 2001) — Wikipedia, a multilingual open-collaborative online encyclopedia created and maintained by a community of volunteer editors using a wiki-based editing system, was launched today by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger.

With 6.2 million articles, the English Wikipedia is the largest of the more than 300 Wikipedia encyclopedias. Overall, Wikipedia comprises more than 55 million articles, attracting 1.5 billion unique visitors per month.

Featuring no ads, it is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American non-profit organization funded primarily through donations.