Between the 11th and 15th centuries, ancestors of the Shona built a city in southern Africa whose dry-stone walls, laid without mortar, reach up to 11 meters high. It thrived on the gold trade, linked to the Swahili coast. European colonists nonetheless credited it to the Phoenicians or the Queen of Sheba. In 1929, archaeologist Gertrude Caton-Thompson confirmed its African origin. At independence in 1980, the country took its name.
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.