Around 60,000 years ago, Homo sapiens wasn't alone: Neanderthals lived in Eurasia, Denisovans in Asia, the small Homo floresiensis in Indonesia and Homo luzonensis in the Philippines. Being the only human species on Earth is a very recent situation for our lineage, which almost always had several branches alive at once.
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.