Original by Eric Schulman <fornax@radix.net>, revised yet again by Neal McBurnett See Universal History Translation Project for more info, or get Eric's book A Briefer History of Time. My annotations are a hasty recent addition. Corrections and feedback are welcome.
Lots goes on in first 3 minutes. Lots in last five hundred years. Pay attention to the part that creates carbon, oxygen, etc. in a massive star which explodes in a supernova, spreading those life-giving elements throught the galaxy before they condense into dust clouds around another star, our sun....
Starting about 13 billion years ago, the "first three minutes"
Quantum fluctuation. Inflation. Expansion. Particle-antiparticle
annihilation. Deuterium and helium production.
The next 300,000 years
Density perturbations. Recombination. Blackbody radiation.
Billions and Billions of years pass
Local contraction. Large scale structure formation. Reionization?
Violent relaxation. Virialization. Galaxy formation.
[Turbulent fragmentation.]
Making the stuff of which life is made....
Contraction. Ionization. Opaque hydrogen. Massive star formation.
Deuterium ignition. Hydrogen fusion. Hydrogen depletion. Core
contraction. [Envelope expansion.] Helium fusion. Carbon, oxygen, and
silicon fusion. Iron production. Implosion. Supernova explosion.
Metals injection.
Meanwhile, over in our galaxy....
[Star formation. Stellar remnant production. Supernova explosions.]
Sun and Earth, 4.6 billion years ago
Star formation. Condensation. Planetesimal accretion. Planetary
differentiation. Crust solidification. Volatile gas expulsion. Water
condensation. Carbon dioxide solution. Water photodissociation. [Escaping
hydrogen.] Ozone production. Ultraviolet absorption. Polymerization. Coacervate
formation.
Life follows quickly, over 3 billion years ago!
Molecular reproduction. Mutation. Natural
selection. Evolution. Fermentation. Photosynthetic unicellular
organisms! Oxidation. Respiration. Cell differentiation. Sexual
reproduction.
It took a long time for the next explosion
Multicellular organisms. Evolutionary diversification.
Fossilization. Trilobite domination. Land exploration. Comet
collision. Dinosaur extinction. Mammal expansion. Glaciation.
Very recent history
Linguistic vocalization. Homo sapiens manifestation.
Animal domestication. Fermentation. Religion.
The next big breakthrough
Food surplus production. Notation. Civilization! Innovation.
Exploration. Warring nations. Empire creation and destruction.
The power of the press
Publication. Scientific explanation. Colonization. Revolution.
Constitution. Election. Expansion. Industrialization. Rebellion.
Emancipation. Mass production. Urbanization. Migration. World
conflagrations. Suffrage extension. Fission explosions. United
Nations. Decolonization. Population explosion. Environmental
degradation. Space exploration. Liberation. Lunar excursions.
Computerization. Globalization.
Internet expansion. Reunification.
Dissolution. Union. World Wide Web creation. Genetic manipulation.
Extrapolation?