So Francophile TomBickle.com mentions that it’s Bastille Day and refers to the Encarta entry for Bastille, which is to the point, but a little thin. As an experiment I checked out my personal favorite encyclopedia (yeah, I have a favorite encyclopedia) Wikipedia — and Wikipedia entry for Bastille is great — and it links to a page for Bastille, which then links to a cool Timeline of the French Revolution.
Wikipedia was built and maintained by amatuers. Encarta by professionals. It makes no sense that Encarta would be so much worse.
Some things about the web make no sense, and I love that.