On the night of September 26, 1983, at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet satellite early-warning system reported the launch of one American missile, then five. The duty officer, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, found it implausible: a real first strike would involve hundreds of missiles. He reported it as a false alarm. He was right: the satellites had mistaken sunlight glinting off clouds for launches.
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.