In 1838, Louis Daguerre photographed the Boulevard du Temple in Paris from his window. The exposure lasted several minutes: carriages and pedestrians moved too fast to register, so the bustling street looks deserted. Except in the lower left, where a man stood still long enough to have his boots polished. He is considered the first human being ever photographed, and almost certainly never knew it.
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.