Founded around 1325 on an island in Lake Texcoco, Tenochtitlan may have had 200,000 inhabitants by 1519, more than most European cities of the day. Linked to the shore by causeways and supplied with fresh water by an aqueduct, it was ringed by chinampas, farm plots built out into the lake. The conquistador Bernal Díaz likened it to the enchanted cities of chivalric romances.
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.