On Sun, 1 Feb 2009, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
Like I say, this story itself may be an urban myth, and certainly even if it happened to be in fact true, it would reference a very early edition of Britannica, perhaps even one of the very first editions. I am sure even their editorial standards have not always been as high, as they are today.
If you're not trying to imply anything about Britannica's current accuracy, and you're not even sure it's true, then I don't even get the point of mentioning it.