In 2010, DNA from a tiny finger bone fragment found in Denisova Cave, Siberia, revealed an unknown group of humans: the Denisovans. Almost no fossils, but a full genome. Their legacy lives on: a version of the EPAS1 gene that helps many Tibetans thrive at high altitude appears to have come from them.
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.