How did we get here?

The universe begins hot, dense and everywhere at once, then expands and cools until the first atoms can form.

Gravity gathers clouds of hydrogen into the first stars and galaxies, and the universe gets its first sources of light and heat.

Stars forge carbon, oxygen and iron in their cores and scatter them when they die; the periodic table fills in.

A disc of gas and dust around a young Sun becomes planets; one of them sorts itself into core, mantle and crust and grows oceans.

Chemistry becomes biology; life learns to use sunlight, remakes the atmosphere, builds complex cells and fills the seas and land.

One lineage of primates learns to make tools, control fire, speak, and pass knowledge on, and becomes the first species whose knowledge accumulates.

People begin to farm, and farming makes villages, cities, states, writing, empires and inequality possible.

The world's societies connect, science becomes a method, fossil fuels power an industrial revolution, and humans become a force on the planet's scale.

The story does not stop at the present. The same science that explains the past sets out what the next century, the next millennium and the deep future could hold.