History Of Earth Shows Where We Fit On Her Timeline

The Earth is really, really old. Over 4 1/2 billion years old, in fact. How do we begin to comprehend a number that large? It helps to put it on a more fathomable scale. Watch to see where Earth's major events would fall on a timeline. Everything humans have ever experienced - art, science, language, technology - happened in a tiny fraction of Earth’s history. Life has an incredible amount to teach us about living well on planet Earth, in no small part due to the fact that it’s been thriving here for a very long time. But, how long is that really? And where do we fit in to that history? Where do we fit on Earth’s timeline?

Earth was “born” on January 1, 4.54 billion years ago. If we compress 4.54 billion years into one year, that means 144 years is 1 second. Life appeared 3.8 billion years ago. On the geologic calendar, that makes February 25 Life’s birthday. Life first appeared as simple cells, which thrived for millions of years before photosynthesis evolved 3.6 billion years ago. That would make photosyntheis’s birthday March 21. 1.5 billion years ago multicellular life emerges, 650 million years ago planet earth freezes, 470 million years ago land plants start to grow, 300 million years ago first land vertebrates emerge. The list is infinitely long and stretches on and on.

There’s no guarantee that we, or any of the other species around us, will remain. We are all subject to the laws of natural selection. But we are surrounded by success stories that we can consciously emulate. We’re surrounded by species that have adapted and evolved to create conditions conducive to future generations of their own species, and others.