Using lidar, an airborne laser that 'sees' through forest, archaeologists mapped an urban network of about 1,000 km² around Angkor's temples, with canals, roads and giant reservoirs. The West Baray alone measures roughly 8 by 2 km. Between the 11th and 13th centuries, no other known pre-industrial settlement sprawled so far.
Around 2300 BCE, Enheduanna, daughter of King Sargon of Akkad, became high priestess of the Moon god at Ur. She composed hymns to the goddess Inanna and put her name to them. She is the oldest person identified as the author of a literary work, about 1,500 years before Homer.
Squeeze Earth's 4.5 billion years into a single 24-hour day. Homo sapiens shows up around 11:59:54 p.m., roughly six seconds before midnight. All of written history, from Sumerian tablets to today, fits into the final tenth of a second. A cosmic blink.