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Prehistory encompasses the time from the beginning of the Universe until the first written records. Over the vast span of billions of years, through many twists and turns, the natural world around us took its current form. Earth was born from the stardust in the outer regions of the Milky Way Galaxy and became entirely covered with water before the first landmasses began to rise from the ocean. Over time, small islands grew into vast continents, which eventually took their current shapes, and sailed to their present locations. Life, too, came into being and evolved from a tiny single-celled organism into a myriad of fungi, plants and animals, eventually into many different human species as well. At the very end of the period, our human species, Homo sapiens, emerged and began to shape the world unlike any other animal before. They spread across the globe, abandoned their lives as hunter-gatherers, and started to cultivate land and domesticate other animals in growing, permanent settlements, which formed the first villages and towns.
The invention of writing marked the beginning of the Ancient World, and history itself as we define it. Writing enabled people to store, organise, and share a large amount of information needed to manage growing societies. Rulers could record taxes and issue laws as cities grew into the first states and empires, which began to rise and fall in Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe. Advances in agriculture created a food surplus, enabling the emergence of new occupations, as not all had to grow their own food. Economies became more complex, and money was developed to make trading easier. Sages, especially in ancient Greece, began to reason about the surrounding world, giving rise to the first astronomers, mathematicians, and other scientists. Three out of four of today’s major religions were also born in vivid human imagination, most notably Christianity, which eventually began its inevitable spread to the most populous faith. The period ended with the fall of the Western Roman Empire, famous for its Caesars, gladiators in the Colosseum, and military tactics.