In the late 90s before Wikipedia, Encarta used to scratch that itch for me. I would spend hours browsing articles, and some of the multimedia presentations were truly impressive[1].
I think if it were alive today, presentations like this Getty one would be common. As much information as Wikipedia has, it's presented in a very static way, which is a shame. There's huge potential of making the information there interactive, and thus more appealing to younger generations (and everyone, really) who otherwise wouldn't read an article with thousands of words and some pictures and audio.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxHM6oGttsA