Timeline

This timeline gives some fundamental dates for the modern origin story using both approximate absolute dates and recalculated dates, as if the universe had been created 13.8 years ago instead of 13.8 billion years ago. This second approach makes it easier to get a sense of the chronological shape of the story. After all, natural selection did not design our minds to cope with millions or billions of years, so this shorter chronology should be easier to grasp.

Most of the dates given for events that happened more than a few thousand years ago were established only in the past fifty years using modern chronometric technologies, of which the most important is radiometric dating.

EVENT: THRESHOLD 1: Big bang: origin of our universe

APPROXIMATE ABSOLUTE DATE: 13.8 billion years ago

DATE DIVIDED BY 1 BILLION: 13 years, 8 months ago

EVENT: THRESHOLD 2: The first stars begin to glow

APPROXIMATE ABSOLUTE DATE: 13.2 (?) billion years ago

DATE DIVIDED BY 1 BILLION: 13 years, 2 months ago

EVENT: THRESHOLD 3: New elements forged in dying large stars

APPROXIMATE ABSOLUTE DATE: Continuously from threshold 2 to the present day

DATE DIVIDED BY 1 BILLION: Continuously from threshold 2 to the present day

EVENT: THRESHOLD 4: Our sun and solar system form

APPROXIMATE ABSOLUTE DATE: 4.5 billion years ago

DATE DIVIDED BY 1 BILLION: 4 years, 6 months ago

EVENT: THRESHOLD 5: Earliest life on Earth

APPROXIMATE ABSOLUTE DATE: 3.8 billion years ago

DATE DIVIDED BY 1 BILLION: 3 years, 9 months ago

EVENT: The first large organisms on Earth

APPROXIMATE ABSOLUTE DATE: 600 million years ago

DATE DIVIDED BY 1 BILLION: 7 months ago

EVENT: An asteroid wipes out the dinosaurs

APPROXIMATE ABSOLUTE DATE: 65 million years ago

DATE DIVIDED BY 1 BILLION: 24 days ago

EVENT: The hominin lineage splits from the chimp lineage

APPROXIMATE ABSOLUTE DATE: 7 million years ago

DATE DIVIDED BY 1 BILLION: 2.5 days ago

EVENT: Homo erectus

APPROXIMATE ABSOLUTE DATE: 2 million years ago

DATE DIVIDED BY 1 BILLION: 17 hours ago

EVENT: THRESHOLD 6: First evidence of our species, Homo sapiens

APPROXIMATE ABSOLUTE DATE: 200,000 years ago

DATE DIVIDED BY 1 BILLION: 100 minutes ago

EVENT: THRESHOLD 7: End of last ice age, beginning of Holocene, earliest signs of farming

APPROXIMATE ABSOLUTE DATE: 10,000 years ago

DATE DIVIDED BY 1 BILLION: 5 minutes ago

EVENT: First evidence of cities, states, agrarian civilizations

APPROXIMATE ABSOLUTE DATE: 5,000 years ago

DATE DIVIDED BY 1 BILLION: 2.5 minutes ago

EVENT: Roman and Han Empires flourish

APPROXIMATE ABSOLUTE DATE: 2,000 years ago

DATE DIVIDED BY 1 BILLION: 1 minute ago

EVENT: World zones begin to be linked together

APPROXIMATE ABSOLUTE DATE: 500 years ago

DATE DIVIDED BY 1 BILLION: 15 seconds ago

EVENT: THRESHOLD 8: Fossil-fuels revolution begins

APPROXIMATE ABSOLUTE DATE: 200 years ago

DATE DIVIDED BY 1 BILLION: 6 seconds ago

EVENT: The Great Acceleration; humans land on the moon

APPROXIMATE ABSOLUTE DATE: 50 years ago

DATE DIVIDED BY 1 BILLION: 1.5 seconds ago

EVENT: THRESHOLD 9 (?): A sustainable world order?

APPROXIMATE ABSOLUTE DATE: 100 years in the future?

DATE DIVIDED BY 1 BILLION: 3 seconds to go

EVENT: The sun dies

APPROXIMATE ABSOLUTE DATE: 4.5 billion years in the future

DATE DIVIDED BY 1 BILLION: 4 years, 6 months to go

EVENT: The universe fades to darkness; entropy wins

APPROXIMATE ABSOLUTE DATE: Gazillions and gazillions of years in the future

DATE DIVIDED BY 1 BILLION: Billions and billions of years from now