Our Universe & our (minute) place in it From what we know, it all seems to have kicked off 13.8 billion years ago (Bya) with our particular rock forming 4.5 Bya. Water (4.4 Bya) and then life (4.0 Bya) followed thereafter, starting with single celled organisms. The full diversity of flora and fauna leading to dinosaurs, mammals began at 500 million years ago (Mya), with the dinosaur extinction at 50 Mya, and humans arriving on the scene approx 5 Mya.
Viewed on a logarithmic scale, in Mya (every order of magnitude), we have:
~5,000 Mya - our Solar system forms, with Earth as a planet
~500 Mya - Cambrian explosion of life (fish, birds, mammals, dinosaurs, trees)
~50 Mya - Dinosaur extinction, the rise of mammals
~5 Mya - The dawn of humans (Homo genus)
~0.5 Mya (500 kya) - Clothes wearing humans (Homo sapiens and Neanderthals)
~50 kya - Homo sapiens out of Africa expansion, decline and extinction of Neanderthals
~5 kya - Copper Age civilization
~500 BCE - classical Greek civilization in the West, Persia in the mid-East, and Jain and Buddhist in the East
50 BCE - Last year of the Roman Republic (Caesar declared in 49 BCE)
~5 BCE - Birth of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ
Further reading:
- Formation of the Universe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_formation_of_the_Universe
- Evolution of Life (extinctions and diversifications): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_evolutionary_history_of_life
- Human Evolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_human_evolution
- Human Pre-History: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_human_prehistory
- Human technology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_historic_inventions
Images:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Nature_timeline
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Life_timeline
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Human_timeline
Timelines - Universe, Life, Humanity From what we know, it all seems to kick off 13 billion years ago (Bya) with our particular rock beginning 4.5 Bya. From this point, water and then life formed at 4 Bya, starting with single celled organisms. The full diversity of flora and fauna leading to dinosaurs, mammals began at 500 million years ago (Mya), with the dinosaur extinction at 50 Mya, and humans arriving on the scene approx 5 Mya. Viewed on a
Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe
Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_formation_of_the_Universe
Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geological_history_of_Earth
Ref: http://www.rocksinmyheadtoo.com/TimeLine.htm
Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Calendar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formation_and_evolution_of_the_Solar_System#Timeline_of_Solar_System_evolution
600m years in the future, the increasing luminosity of the sun will cause plate tectonics to fail, carbon dioxide to become trapped in surface rocks, causing 99% of plant life to die off, followed by the depletion of oxygen from the atmosphere, causing multi-cellular life to die out. Mars, by this time, will start to have surface temperatures akin to Earth at the end of the ice ages...
From Big Bang to Heat Death of the Universe (10^1000 years later): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_timeline_from_Big_Bang_to_Heat_Death