Like others, I find Wikipedia a useful starting point. I have often found it subtly wrong in areas I know about - I occasionally get cross enough to go in and change it. It does seem to have a certain political bias, which is easily ignored.
Where it contains references (which it calls citations, like traffic offences) to other sources, those items are usually either accurate or so far out it's blindingly obvious.
It's an excellent place to start a search, but I would never (ever) quote it in an academic paper.