The problem with those home encyclopedias was they were mostly a decade or more out of date. And only provided a very limited amount of information. Generally only a few paragraphs or a page at best. Reference books suffered the same problems of not being current. Turns out books cost money and knowledge ain’t cheap.
The only reference book that I own that is even remotely up to date is the last Machinery’s Handbook I bought. And even that is multiple issues behind now.
All you needed to do was get up off your arse, travel to a library, (business hours only), and dig through a card catalog for outdated information on the subject you were interested in. Bonus difficulty: Needing to wait a week for your library to get the outdated book you needed because it was in a different town.
Today all information is available at any time-- 24/7365. Bonus difficulty: Sorting through all the AI bullshit to glean the correct information on a subject you know very little about.
No US president is a peace dove. Between supporting proxie wars to police actions to declared war, they all end up getting people killed by bombs.
They still do. Birthdays and funerals are also fodder for small town print papers.