slug: history
translates: history
lang: en
title: "Holocene History"
pageCreated: "2000-01-01"
extends ../../views/layout.pug
append presets
- linkIcons = false;
mixin ya(date)
div #{2023 - date} ya
mixin wiki(article)
a(href=`https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/${article.replace(/ /g, "_")}`)
block
append head
style.
:root {
--background: #fff8f0;
--text: #332822;
--accent: #717171
}
main {
max-inline-size: 85ch;
}
#colour-coding {
display: flex;
justify-content: stretch;
flex-wrap: wrap;
gap: 0.666ch;
margin-block-end: 1em;
font-family: var(--sans-serif);
}
#colour-coding li {
flex-grow: 1;
color: white;
text-align: center;
background-color: var(--accent);
border-radius: 0.333em;
}
.am {
--accent: #8a3ee0;
}
.eu {
--accent: #0074c8;
}
.af {
--accent: #008a23;
}
.me {
--accent: #867000;
}
.in {
--accent: #ac5700;
}
.ea {
--accent: #d50022;
}
.oc {
--accent: #c80084;
}
.xx {
--accent: #717171;
}
ul.no-list.history > li {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: minmax(12.5ch, auto) 1fr;
gap: 1em;
margin-block-end: 1em;
}
.history li time {
color: white;
background-color: var(--accent);
padding: 0.5em;
font-family: var(--sans-serif);
line-height: 1.25;
border-radius: 1ch;
}
.history li time > div:first-child {
font-weight: bold;
}
.history li time > div:not(:first-child) {
opacity: 0.85;
font-size: 0.9em;
}
.history li > div > p:first-child {
margin-block-start: 0.5em;
}
small {
font-style: italic;
}
block content
p History is long. Very long. The only thing longer than that is pre-history, and if you start thinking about the lengths of time involved in #[em that] for long enough, your brain will turn into a fine mush and seep out of your ears.
p So here’s a handy timeline of everything (well, not everything, i am just one person, from one region in the world, and one without any scholastic training in history to boot) to help liquefy your mind. Each date is here listed in three forms. First, there’s the #[b #[a(href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar") Gregorian calendar]] #[+sc('(CE)')], which counts forward from some time about the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, and is by far the most common in use today. A simple ticker of #[b years ago] (ya) helps puts dates into perspective, and the #[b #[a(href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attic_calendar") Attic calendar]] starts at the first ancient Olympics (conveniently about the start of European “classical antiquity”).
p Each event is also handily colour-coded by where in the global theatre it took place:
ul.no-list#colour-coding
li.am America
li.eu Europe
li.af Africa
li.me Mideast
li.in India
li.ea East Asia
li.oc Oceania
li.xx Other
ul.no-list.history
li.xx
time
div 13.8bn ya
div
p Time begins. The universe balloons into existence from an unimaginably hot and dense singularity; in a fraction of a fraction of a second, the forces of nature disentangle themselves from one another and matter begins to fling itself through space.
li.xx
time
div 13.4bn ya
div
p The earliest known galaxies, made of searingly hot and burningly bright “third population” stars, form.
li.xx
time
div 4.6bn ya
div
p A diffuse cloud of matter floating around the Milky Way collapses in on itself, forming the sun and what will become the solar system around it.
li.xx
time
div 4.5bn ya
div
p Slowly, steadily, over a hundred millions of years, the early #[span.theonym Earth] comes together. Far from the lush green world we know today, in this #[+wiki('Hadean') Hadean æon], it is a hellish place, where the ground is broiling lava, asteroids rain from above, and a thick methane sky weighs upon the land.
li.xx
time
div 4.4bn ya
div
p A Mars-sized rock crashes into #[span.theonym Earth], forming a disc of ejecta that will eventually coalesce into the Moon.
li.am
time
div 3.7bn ya
div
p It is at this time that we find our #[a(href="https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5181&context=smhpapers") earliest known hint of life] — traces of carbon in the rocks of Isua, in southwestern Greenland. The simple cells of the Archæan æon are thought to have clung around volcanic fissures on the ocean floor.
li.xx
time
div 2.1bn ya
div
p Aggregates of flagellates clump together and become the first multi-cellular forms of life.
li.xx
time
div 539mn ya
div
p As oxygen floods the atmosphere and its protective ozone layer forms, life flourishes into a million forms in the #[+wiki('Cambrian explosion') Cambrian explosion], whither almost all modern animals can trace their lineage.
li.am
time
div 66.0mn ya
div
p A rock the size of Mount Everest crashes into the Yucatán peninsula. The ecological devastation it wreaks kills some seventy-five per cent of all animals on #[span.theonym Earth], including every non-avian species of dinosaur.
li.af
time
div ~3.3mn ya
div
p On the banks of Lake Turkana, a pack of very clever hominids start to use stone tools. The stone age begins.
li.af
time
div ~2.0mn ya
div
p Hominids — not quite yet modern humans — first expand out of Africa and into the world.
li.af
time
div ~300,000 #[+sc('BCE')]
div ~300k ya
div
p #[i Homines sapientes] — humans as we know ourselves — split off from some genus or another. Over the coming years, they will like their cousins spread out of Africa to…
li.me
time
div ~130,000 #[+sc('BCE')]
div ~130k ya
div
p …Eurasia…
li.oc
time
div ~63,000 #[+sc('BCE')]
div ~65k ya
div
p …Australia…
li.am
time
div ~13,000 #[+sc('BCE')]
div ~15k ya
div
p …and over land and sea to the Americas.
li.eu
time
div 1066 #[+sc('CE')]
+ya(1066)
div Ol. υξα'.β'
div
p #[+wiki('William the Conqueror') Williame, duke of Normandy] #[small (*~1028 Falaise, †1087)], defeats #[+wiki('Harold Godwinson') Harold Godwinson, king of England] #[small (*~1022 Wessex)], at the battle of Hastings, conquering England for himself.
li.am
time
div 1492 #[+sc('CE')]
+ya(1492)
div Ol. φξζ'.δ'
div
p Christopher Columbus #[small (*1832 Genoa, †1902 tuberculosis)] sets foot in the Bahamas and fucks everything up.
li.in
time
div 1947 #[+sc('CE')]
+ya(1947)
div Ol. χπα'.γ'
div
p #[a(href="//wikipedia.org") Christopher Columbus] #[small (*1832 Genoa, †1902 tuberculosis)] sets foot in the Bahamas and fucks everything up.