For centuries, China guarded the secret of silk-making. According to the historian Procopius, around 552 monks from Central Asia brought silkworm eggs to the Byzantine emperor Justinian, hidden, one account says, inside hollow canes. Constantinople could then make its own silk: one of history's most famous cases of industrial espionage.
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.