Cosmic Calendar

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The Cosmic Calendar is a scale in which the lifetime of the universe is mapped onto a calendrical year; that is to say, the Big Bang took place on a cosmic January 1 at precisely midnight, and today's date and time is December 31 at midnight.[1] On this calendar, the solar system did not appear until September 9, life on Earth arose on September 30, the first dinosaurs appeared on December 25th, the first flowers on December 28th and the first primates on December 30. The first humans did not arrive until around 10:30 p.m. on New Year's Eve, and all of human history has been recorded in the last 10 seconds. The Middle Ages to the present is a little more than one second. On this timescale, an average human life is about 0.15 seconds. The scale was popularized by Carl Sagan in his book The Dragons of Eden and on the television series Cosmos, which he hosted.

[edit] The Cosmic Year

01 BIG BANG 01 January Big Bang. 01 May Milky Way Galaxy. 09 September Solar System. 14 September Earth. 25 September Oldest rocks known on Earth.

02 LIFE BIRTH 02 October Life on Earth. 09 October Oldest fossils. 01 November Invention of sex.. 12 November Oldest fossil of photosynthetic plants.. 15 November Eukaryotes flourish.. 1 December Oxygen atmosphere begins to develop.. 17 December Invertebrates flourish. . 18 December First oceanic plankton.. 19 December Fish..Vertebrates.. 20 December Vascular plants. Plants begin colonisation of land.. 21 December Insects.Animals begin colonisation of land..

03 GIANTS DOMINATION 22 December Amphibians. Winged insects.. 23 December Trees. Reptiles. 24 December Dinosaurs appears and dominated for over 160 milion years.. 26 December First mammals.. 27 December First birds. First Flowers. .

04 CHICXULUB 28 December Worst day of planet Earth: A big asteroid slammes into Yucatan..

05 GLOBAL EXTINCTION. 28 December K-T mass extinction, many forms of life perished, including dinosaurs..

06 PRIMATE DOMINATION 29 December First primates.. 30 December Early brain evolution of primates. First hominids.. 31 December Time 13.30.00: Ancestors of apes and men.. 31 December Time 22.30.00: First humans.. 31 December Time 23.00.00: Use of stone tools.. 31 December Time 23.46.00: Domestication of fire.. 31 December Time 23.56.00: Most recent glacial period.. 31 December Time 23.59.00: Rupestral painting in Europe.. 31 December Time 23.59.20: Agriculture.. 31 December Time 23.59.35: Neolithic civilisation..

07 HISTORY BEGINS 31 December Time 23.59.50: End of prehistory and beginning of history.. Dynasties in Sumer.. Ebla and Egypt.. Astronomy.. 31 December Time 23.59.51: Alphabet.. Akkadian Empire.. Wheel is invented.. The Great Deluge. 31 December Time 23.59.52: Hammurabic legal codes in Babylon.. Middle Kingdom in Egypt. 31 December Time 23.59.53: Bronze metallurgy.. Mycenaean culture.. Trojan War.. Olmec culture.. 31 December Time 23.59.54: Iron metallurgy. Assyrian Empire.. Kingdom of Israel.. Founding of Carthage..

08 EMPERORS AND GODS 31 December Time 23.59.55: Birth of Buddha and Confucio.. Ch'in Dynasty China.. Periclean Athens.. Asokan Indian empire.. Indian Veda holy scriptures are completed. 31 December Time 23.59.56: Euclidean geometry.. Archimedean physics.. Ptolemaic astronomy.. Greek olympic games.. Roman Empire.. Birth of Christ.. 31 December Time 23.59.57: Birth of Maometto.. Zero and decimals invented in Indian arithmetic.. Rome falls.. Moslem conquests.. 31 December Time 23.59.58: Mayan civilisation.. Sung Dynasty China.. Byzantine empire.. Mongol invasion.. Crusades.

09 VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY 31 December Time 23.59.59: Voyages of discovery from Europe and from Ming Dynasty China.. Colombo discovers America.. Renaissance in Europe..

10 THE LAST SECOND 31 December Time 24.00.00: Beginning of modern culture, science and technology development.. French revolution. First world war. Second world war. Apollo lands on the moon.. Spacecraft planetary exploration.. Search for extraterrestrial intelligence forms of life..

[edit] References

  1. ^ Therese Puyau Blanchard (1995). The Universe At Your Fingertips Activity: Cosmic Calendar. Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Retrieved on 2007-12-15.