DETROIT – Around the planet, people watched the Michael Jackson memorial unfold live on movie screens, televisions, computers and mobile phones.

Maya Angelou, in a poem read by Queen Latifah at the ceremony in Los Angeles, captured the day: “Today in Tokyo, beneath the Eiffel Tower, in Ghana’s Black Star Square. In Johannesburg and Pittsburgh, in Birmingham, Ala., and Birmingham, England. We are missing Michael.”

In Detroit, more than 1,000 people gathered Tuesday at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History to watch the memorial broadcast from Los Angeles’ Staples Center. On the sizzling Strip in Las Vegas, coverage of the memorial was beamed from four screens outside Planet Hollywood. In the city’s classic reality-bending style, it evoked Angelou’s comment with a Vegas twist – this all played out next to a replica Eiffel Tower.

AEG Live, which organized the event, said it expected TV feeds of the memorial to reach more than 1 billion people worldwide. At least 17 networks aired live coverage of the service.

Because no one tracks Web viewings, it will be impossible to know how many people watched the event online. The previous audience record for a memorial was Princess Diana’s funeral service in 1997. The British Broadcasting Corp. estimated that 2.5 billion people watched that service on television.

Jackson’s service was carried by a number of mobile telephone platforms, including Apple, CBS Mobile and Sprint TV.

At the Wright Museum, people wrote out their feelings on six oversized white poster boards. People were signing them before, during and after the memorial. By the time it was over, the boards were covered with messages:

“They will still play ur music in heaven.”

“I got you tattooed on me.”

“Say hello to Jesus for me.”

People did the same in Seattle, at the towering Sky Church at the Experience Music Project, the rock ’n’ roll museum created by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, as the memorial service was played on a large video screen.

One of those attending the memorial at the Wright Museum was Charlese Williams, who arrived at 7 a.m., two hours before it opened – and six hours before the museum’s live broadcast of the memorial would begin inside the General Motors Theater. She arrived early because she was afraid she wouldn’t get a seat.

It was a close call. By 10:30 a.m., the 320-seat theater was packed with a crowd of 400, and more people were walking through the museum’s glass doors.

When the memorial began and the lights grew dark in Los Angeles, the theater grew dark, too. Williams watched the screen as the golden casket was brought into view. Tears streaked down her cheeks.

“Thank you for being born,” murmured Williams, 51, a mother of seven.

In Boulder, Colo., computer consultant Rick Thompson said he found himself irritated by a Republican politician’s criticism of the coverage as excessive.

“This is a genuine event. Michael Jackson has done more in the entertainment business, socially, politically – in a sense, he’s done more than most senators will do in their lifetime,” he said.

“I have a respect for his greatness,” he said.