A second or two

When I was a boy I devoured science books. One of them (I still have it on my shelf) describes the timeline of the Earth as it would appear if the Earth were a year old.

I don't remember the exact time frames, but the Cambrian explosion of life - the appearance of trilobites, primitive relatives of squids and fishes, and early scorpion-like athropods - doesn't begin until the end of October. (The previous months feature only archobacteria, and then finally protozoans and simple worms, sponges, jellyfish, and other soft-bodied creatures.)

The dinosaurs and early dicynodonts (the early hairy ancestors of mammals) don't show up until mid-December. On December 26th, they die out, grass spreads across the fields, and cat-sized horses called Eohippus take their first trot.

On the eve of December 31st, strange upright creatures start exploring the open wooded areas of Africa, and soon become us. 10 minutes to midnight, the Neanderthals are the masters of Europe. Four minutes later, Homo Sapiens Sapiens takes the first steps towards civilization by inventing Agriculture. Twenty to ten seconds ago, the Bible narrative happened - in its entirety, from Abraham's wandering in Genesis to John seeing scrolls at Patmos in Revelation. And in the last second, the entire modern history of our continent took place.

How short a time we get to witness. Don't waste it. :-)