An Oral History of Wikipedia, OneZero asked the individuals who made Wikipedia what it is today how it all started.

It’s hard to imagine the internet without Wikipedia. Just like the air we breathe, the definitive digital encyclopedia is the default resource for everything and everyone — from Google’s search bar to undergrad students embarking on research papers.

It has more than 6 million entries in English, it is visited hundreds of millions of times per day, and it reflects whatever the world has on its mind. It was also never meant to exist — at least, not like this.

Now 20 years later — Wikipedia’s birthday is this Friday — nearly 300,000 editors (or “Wikipedians”) now volunteer their time to write, edit, block, squabble over, and scrub every corner of the sprawling encyclopedia.