02/04/2020 

Big Chronology of Life on Earth

“Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not, both are equally terrifying.”

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, 1962

“Live long and prosper.
In nI’ yISIQ ‘ej yIchep (Klingon pronunciation).
dif-tor heh smusma (Vulcan pronunciation).”

Commander Spock from Vulcan in the Spaceship USS Enterprise, 2260

To put into perspective a complete chronology and evolution of life on our tiny planet Earth, I summarize here what I consider the most relevant information from the very distant past to our immediate future. The objective is to reach a better understanding about the long-term evolution of life, including the power of exponential changes.

Big History is a new discipline that allows us to analyze with a multidisciplinary focus the way events follow each other throughout time. Starting with a huge time scale from the faraway past to the present, we can see that there is an acceleration of the speed of changes, that should continue now thanks to exponential technologies. My great futurist friend Ray Kurzweil, in his best-seller The Singularity is Near, does a good job explaining the acceleration of these changes, and that is why I use some of his predictions to the end of the 21st Century.

Interested readers are invited to contact me directly to continue making this chronology better in the future. All comments are more than welcome.

Millions of years ago (Ma)

~13,800 Ma: Big Bang and formation of the known Universe

~12,500 Ma: Milky Way Galaxy formation

~4,600 Ma: Solar System formation

~4,500 Ma: Earth formation

~4,300 Ma: First water concentration on Earth

~4,000 Ma: First unicellular life (prokaryotes without cellular nucleus)

~4,000 Ma: LUCA, our Last Universal Common Ancestor, was born

~3,500 Ma: Oxygen concentration rises on Earth atmosphere

~3,000 Ma: First photosynthesis in simple unicellular organisms

~2,000 Ma: Evolution of unicellular prokaryotes (without nucleus) into eukaryotes (with nucleus)

~1,500 Ma: First multicellular eukaryote organisms

~1,200 Ma: First sexual reproduction (germinal and somatic cells appear)

~600 Ma: First invertebrate marine animals

~540 Ma: Cambrian explosion and appearance of multiple species

~520 Ma: First vertebrate marine animals

~440 Ma: Evolution from marine life to terrestrial life (first plants on dry land)

~360 Ma: First terrestrial plants with seeds, and first crabs

~300 Ma: First reptiles

~250 Ma: First dinosaurs

~200 Ma: First mammals, and first birds

~130 Ma: First angiosperm plants (with flowers)

~65 Ma: Extinction of dinosaurs and development of primate

~15 Ma: Hominidae family (big primates) appears

~3.5 Ma: First tools made of stone

~2.5 Ma: Homo gender appears

~1.5 Ma: First use of fire

~0.8 Ma: First time cooking was used

~0.5 Ma: First time clothes were used

~0.2 Ma: Homo sapiens species appears

~0.1 Ma: Homo sapiens sapiens comes out of Africa and starts colonizing planet Earth

Thousands of years ago

~ 40,000 BC: Rock paintings appear, symbols of deities, fertility, and death

~ 20,000 BC: Lighter skin evolution due to migration to regions with less solar exposure

~ 3,500 BC: Egyptians invent hieroglyphs and Sumerians cuneiform writing

~ 3,300 BC: Documented use of herbology and physiotherapy in China and Egypt

~ 3,000 BC: Papyrus was invented in Egypt and clay tablets were invented in Mesopotamia

~ 2,800 BC: Chinese emperor Shennong compiles a text with acupuncture techniques

~ 2.600 BC: Imhotep, priest and doctor, is considered the God of Medicine in Egypt

~ 2,500 BC: Documented use of Ayurveda medicine in India

~ 2,000 BC: The Code of Hammurabi establishes rules to exercise medicine in Babylon

650 BC: Assurbanipal compiles 800 tablets about medicine in the library of Nineveh

450 BC: Xenophanes of Colophon examines fossils and speculates about the evolution of life

420 BC: Hippocrates writes the Hippocratic Treaties and creates the Hippocratic oath

350 BC: Aristotle writes about evolutionary biology and tries to classify animals

300 BC: Herophilos of Chalcedon makes medical dissections on humans

100 BC: Asclepiades of Bithynia imports Greek medicine to Rome and founds the Methodic School

First millennium AD

180 AD: Greek doctor Galen of Pergamon studies the connection between paralysis and the spinal cord

219 AD: Zhang Zhongjing publishes the Shanghan Lun (Treatise on Cold Damage Disorders) in China

250 AD: Foundation of a school of tribal medicine in Monte Alban, Mexico

390 AD: Oribasius of Pergamon compiles the Medical Collections in Constantinople

400 AD: First Christian hospital founded by Saint Fabiola in Rome

630 AD: Isidore of Seville compiles his great work The Etymologies

870 AD: Persian doctor Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari writes a medical encyclopedia in Arab

910 AD: Persian doctor Rasis identifies the difference between smallpox and measles

1000 - 1799 AD

1030: Persian polymath Avicenna writes the Canon of Medicine that would be used until the 18th Century

1204: Pope Innocent III organizes the first Holy Spirit hospital in Rome

1403: Quarantine against the Black Death pandemic in Venice (after already killing millions in Europe)

1541: Swiss doctor Paracelsus made great progress in medicine (surgery and toxicology)

1553: Spanish doctor Miguel Servet studies pulmonary circulation (and burnt at the stake for heresy)

1590: Microscope is invented in the Netherlands and makes medicine move forward faster

1665: English scientist Robert Hooke uses the microscope to identify cells (and popularizes that name)

1675: Dutch scientist Anton van Leeuwenhoek starts microbiology with microscopes

1774: English scientist Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen and starts modern chemistry

1780: US polymath Benjamin Franklin writes about curing aging and human preservation

1796: English doctor Edward Jenner develops the first effective vaccine against smallpox

1798: English scholar Thomas Malthus argues about food production and human overpopulation

1800 - 1899 AD

1804: Global population reaches 1,000,000,000 people

1804: French doctor René Laennec invents the stethoscope

1809: French scientist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposes the first theory of evolution

1818: English doctor James Blundell performs the first successful blood transfusion

1828: German scientist Christian Ehrenberg coins the word bacterium (“cane” in Greek)

1842: US doctor Crawford Long accomplishes the first surgery with anesthesia

1858: German doctor Rudolf Virchow publishes his cell theory

1859: English scientist Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of  Species by Means of Natural Selection in London

1865: Austrian monk Gregor Mendel discovers the laws of genetics

1869: Swiss doctor Friedrich Miescher identifies DNA for the first time

1870: Scientists Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch publish the microbial theory of infections

1882: French scientist Louis Pasteur develops a vaccine against rabies

1890: Walter Flemming and others describe the chromosome distribution during cellular division

1892: German biologist August Weismann proposes the “immortality” of germ cells

1895: German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovers X-rays and their medical uses

1896: French physicist Antoine Henri Becquerel discovers radioactivity

1898: Dutch scientist Martinus Beijerinck discovers the first virus and starts virology

1900 - 1959 AD

1905: English biologist William Bateson coins the term genetics

1906: English scientist Frederick Hopkins describes vitamins and associated illnesses

1906: German doctor Alois Alzheimer describes the disease named after him

1906: Santiago Ramón y Cajal receives the Nobel Prize for his studies about the nervous system

1911: Thomas Hunt Morgan demonstrates that genes reside in chromosomes

1922: Russian scientist Aleksandr Oparin proposes a theory about the origin of life on Earth

1925: French biologist Edouard Chatton coins the words prokaryote and eukaryote

1927: Global population reaches 2,000,000,000 people

1927: First vaccines against tetanus and tuberculosis

1928: English scientist Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin (first antibiotic)

1933: Polish scientist Tadeus Reichstein synthesizes the first vitamin (vitamin C, ascorbic acid)

1934: Scientists working at Cornell University discover caloric restriction for life extension in mice

1938: A coelacanth (considered a “living fossil”) was fished in the south of Africa

1950: First synthetic antibiotic is developed

1951: Artificial insemination of cattle starts with cryopreserved semen

1951: HeLa (Henrietta Lacks) cancer cells are discovered to be “biologically immortal”

1952: US doctor Jonas Salk develops a vaccine against poliomyelitis

1952: US chemist Stanley Miller experiments about the origin of life

1952: First cloning experiments with frog eggs are made

1953: Scientists James D. Watson and Francis Crick demonstrate DNA’s double helix structure

1954: US doctor Joseph Murray transplants the first human kidney

1958: US doctor Jack Steele coins the word bionic

1959: Global population reaches 3,000,000,000 people

1959: Spanish scientist Severo Ochoa receives the Nobel Prize for his work about DNA and RNA

1960 – 1999 AD

1961: Spanish biochemist Joan Oró advances his theories about the origin of life

1961: US scientist Leonard Hayflick discovers a limit on cellular division

1967: US academic James Bedford becomes the first patient in cryopreservation

1967: South African doctor Christiaan Barnard makes the first human heart transplant

1972: Discovery that the DNA composition in humans and gorillas is almost 99% similar

1974: Global population reaches 4,000,000,000 people

1975: Different scientists finally discover the telomeres (first considered in 1933)

1978: First human being is born thanks to artificial insemination (Louise Brown in England)

1978: Stem cells discovered in the blood of an umbilical cord

1980: World Health Organization declares smallpox officially eradicated worldwide

1981: First stem cells (from mice) developed “in vitro”

1982: Humulin (drug for diabetes) is the first biotech product approved by the FDA

1985: Australian-American biologist Elizabeth Blackburn identifies the telomerase enzyme

1986: HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) is identified as the cause of AIDS

1987: Global population reaches 5,000,000,000 people

1990: Human Genome Project starts as a great effort lead by several governments

1990: First gene therapy is approved to treat an immune disorder

1990: FDA approves the first genetically modified organism (Flavr Savr tomato)

1993: US biologist Cynthia Kenyon increases several times the lifespan of C. elegans

1995: US scientist Caleb Finch describes negligible senescence in some animals

1996: Scottish scientist Ian Wilmut clones Dolly, first cloned mammal (a sheep)

1998: First embryonic stem cells isolated in young human embryos

1999: Global population reaches 6,000,000,000 people

2000 – 2019 AD

2001: US scientist Craig Venter announces his sequence of the human genome (based on his own)

2002: First artificial virus (polio virus) is completely created by scientists

2003: Human Genome Project ends officially, with both public and private participation and projects

2003: English scientist Aubrey de Grey and his colleagues create the Methuselah Foundation

2004: SARS epidemy is contained a year after its start (genome sequenced in days)

2006: Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka generates induced pluripotent stem cells in Kyoto

2008: Spanish biologist María Blasco announces the life extension of mice at CNIO in Madrid

2009: English scientist Aubrey de Grey and his colleagues create the SENS Research Foundation

2009: Nobel Prize on Physiology and Medicine for studies on telomeres and telomerase

2010s: First Bridge towards indefinite lifespans using current technologies (Ray Kurzweil)

2010: US scientist Craig Venter announces the creation of the first artificial bacterium (Synthia)

2010: Nobel Prize on Physiology and Medicine for the development of in vitro fertilization

2011: Global population reaches 7,000,000,000 people

2011: French researches achieve the rejuvenation of human cells “in vitro”

2012: Nobel Prize on Physiology and Medicine for cloning and cell reprogramming (pluripotent cells)

2013: First rat kidney produced “in vitro” in the USA

2013: First human liver produced with stem cells in Japan

2013: Google announces the creation of Calico (California Life Company) to cure aging

2014: IBM expands the use of its intelligent medical system called Doctor Watson

2014: Korean-American doctor Joon Yun creates the Palo Alto Longevity Prize

2015: First experimental vaccine against the virus of Ebola hemorrhagic fever

2016: Facebook chairman Mark Zuckerberg announces that it will be possible to cure “all diseases”

2016: Microsoft scientists announce that they should be able to cure cancer within 10 years

2017: Spanish scientist Juan Carlos Izpisúa announces that he has been able to rejuvenate mice 40%

2018: First commercial treatment with gene therapy using CRISPR

2018: Birth of first CRISPR babies to avoid HIV infections in China

2019: FDA approval of the first senolytics treatments for life extension

2020 AD – 2029 AD (some possibilities)

2020s: Second Bridge towards indefinite lifespans using biotechnology (Ray Kurzweil)

2020s: Worldwide eradication of poliomyelitis

2020s: Worldwide eradication of measles

2020s: Vaccine against malaria

2020s: Vaccine against HIV

2020s: Cure for the majority of cancers

2020s: Cure for Parkinson’s disease

2020s: 3D bioprinting of simple human organs

2020s: Commercial cloning of human organs with own cells from patients

2020s: Beginning of commercial rejuvenation treatments with stem cells and telomerase

2020s: AI and robot doctors complement and supplement human doctors

2020s: Telemedicine spreads worldwide

2020s: First manned trips to Mars (Elon Musk)

2025: Molecular assemblers (nanotechnology) are possible (Ray Kurzweil)

2023: Global population reaches 8,000,000,000 people according to the United Nations

2026: Global population reaches 8,000,000,000 people according to the US Census Bureau

2029: Longevity escape velocity is reached (Ray Kurzweil)

2029: An advanced AI finally passes Alan Turing’s test (Ray Kurzweil)

After 2030 AD (more possibilities)

2030s: Third Bridge towards indefinite lifespans using nanotechnology (Ray Kurzweil)

2030s: Cure for Alzheimer’s disease

2030s: Worldwide eradication of malaria

2030s: Worldwide eradication of HIV

2030s: Consolidation of the first human colony in Mars (Elon Musk)

2037: Global population reaches 9,000,000,000 people according to the United Nations

2039: Mental transfer from brain to brain becomes possible (Ray Kurzweil)

2040s: Fourth Bridge towards indefinite lifespans and immortality using AI (Ray Kurzweil)

2040s: Interplanetary Internet connects to Earth, Moon, Mars, and spaceships

2042: Global population reaches 9,000,000,000 people according to the US Census Bureau

2045: Aging is cured and death becomes optional (Ray Kurzweil)

2045: The Singularity: AI surpasses all human intelligence (Ray Kurzweil)

2049: Distinction between reality and virtual reality disappears (Ray Kurzweil)

2050: Humanoid robots win English football cup (British Telecom)

2050s: First reanimations of cryopreserved patients (Ray Kurzweil)

2072: Picotechnology starts (pico is one thousand times smaller than nano, Ray Kurzweil)

2099: Femtotechnology starts (femto is one thousand times smaller than pico, Ray Kurzweil)

2099: Lifespan becomes irrelevant in a world of “amortality”

José Luis Cordeiro, MBA, PhD is an international fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS), executive director of the Ibero-American Futurists Network (RIBER), director of The Millennium Project, vicechair of HumanityPlus (H+), and former director of the Club of Rome (Venezuela Chapter), the World Transhumanist Association (WTA), and the Extropy Institute (ExI). He has also been invited faculty at prestigious institutions like the Institute of Developing Economies IDE — JETRO in Tokyo, Japan, the Monterrey Institute of Technology in Mexico, Singularity University (SU) at NASA Ames in Silicon Valley, California, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) and the Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Russia.

José Luis studied engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA, economics at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, management at the European Business School INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France, and science at Universidad Simon Bolivar (USB) in Caracas, Venezuela. He is a leading international expert on technological change and future trends. He has published more than 10 books in 5 languages and appeared in programs with the BBC, CNN, Discovery Channel, and History Channel, among many international media interviews. His recent book La muerte de la muerte has become an international best-seller in Spain and Latin America, published by Editorial Planeta in Madrid, Spain, with coauthor David Wood and prologue by Aubrey de Grey. He is a lifetime member of the Sigma Xi (ΣΞ), Tau Beta Pi (ΤΒΠ), and Beta Gamma Sigma (ΒΓΣ) honor societies.