In 1847, at Vienna General Hospital, Ignaz Semmelweis wondered why new mothers died of childbed fever far more often on the ward run by doctors, who came straight from autopsies, than on the midwives' ward. He ordered handwashing with chlorinated water, and mortality dropped from about 10% to 1 or 2%. His colleagues rejected the idea. Committed to an asylum in 1865, he died two weeks later.
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.