1884- The Oxford Dictionary Debuts

The first section of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), is published. The OED is considered the most comprehensive and accurate dictionary of the English language. Plans were made starting in 1857, and it was estimated that the project would take about 10 years to finish. In fact, it took over 40 years until the 125th and final fascicle, or portion was published in April 1928 and the full dictionary was complete. The project had over 400,000 words and phrases in 10 volumes–and published under the title A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles.A new version of the dictionary containing new entries and revisions, was published in 1933 and the original dictionary was reprinted in 12 volumes and officially renamed the Oxford English Dictionary. Between 1972 and 1986, an updated 4-volume version was published with even more new terms.

Then later, Oxford University Press decided to start on a five-year, multi-million-dollar project to create an electronic version of the dictionary. This required 120 people to type the pages and 50 proofreaders to check their work. A CD-ROM version of the dictionary was released in 1992. The dictionary is now available online and updated frequently with new words and  revisions. Now, at 20 volumes weighing over 137 pounds, it would reportedly take one person 120 years to type all 59 million words in the OED.

(Taken from: www.history.com)