Medieval towns had many bathhouses, known in France as étuves, where people washed, bathed and sweated. In Paris, the Book of Trades, written around 1268, already regulated the bathhouse keepers' profession, and criers announced in the streets that the baths were hot. Only later, in the 16th and 17th centuries, did water become suspect: it was thought to open the pores to diseases such as plague. Bathhouses closed, and people 'washed' by changing their linen.
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.