How did we get to where we are now? The back story to the chronicle of humanity is a long one. There would be no human history without a physical place for it to unfold. So to truly understand ourselves, we have to understand how the universe came into being, how the stars and planets formed, why our planet has the right conditions for life to have appeared. And we also need to understand how living things work, and how they evolved, and how we have ended up – with us.