Irene Triplett died on May 31, 2020, aged 90. She was still receiving about $73 a month in a Civil War pension, for a war that ended in 1865. Her father, Mose Triplett, had fought for the Confederacy before deserting and joining the Union army. Born in 1846, he was 83 when Irene was born in 1930. Just two lifetimes spanned more than 150 years of history.
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.