1. Understand the chronological order and scope of World History
Measuring History
Content Standards
Understand the chronological order and scope of World History

2. The Story
The world is roughly 4.5 to 6 billion years old –we’re are going to round that to 5,280,000,000
Scientists believe the earliest humans branched off from chimpanzees around 5 to 7 million years ago
Hominids “Lucy” 2.3 to 2.4 millions years ago
First Homo Sapiens 400,000 to 500,000 years ago

3. The math for measuring history
Let’s assume that the world is billion years old. (5,280,000,000)
1 foot =1 million years (1,000,000)
To make the math easier, drop the zeros
5,280,000,000
1,000,000
5,280 ft
5280 ft = 1 mile

4. Lets get started
The first simple cell organisms developed around 3.8 billion years ago. Dinosaurs developed around 230 million years ago. How many feet are there between the time of the first simple organisms and the dinosaurs?
3,800,000,000
/ 230,000,000
= 3,570 feet
Remember there are 5,280 feet in a mile

5. The Dinosaurs
Dinosaurs roomed around from about 230 million years ago until about 65 million years ago. How many feet would Dinosaurs represent in the planets history?
230,000,000
65,000,000
165 feet

6. “Lucy” hominids
"Lucy" is estimated to be around 3.2 million years old, so lets assume that is roughly the time the first human ancestor developed. How many feet has it been since Lucy's time?
3,200,000
3.2 feet ago

7. First Modern Humans
Homo Sapiens (what we are) developed in Africa around 200,000 years ago.
How many feet do modern humans represent in the timeline of our planet? (remember each foot equals 1 million years)
200,000 / 1,000,000
.02 inches
This means that ALL of human history would fit into .02 inches of the worlds 5,280 feet of history.

8. The Modern Era
The Renaissance, which began around 1350, is often considered the beginning of the "modern era". How many feet of Earth's history belong to the modern era?
2017 – 1350=
667 years

9. The Modern Era
Lets convert this 667 feet into years (remember 1 foot is 1 million years)
667 / 1,000,000 =
feet
This seems like a strange measurement. How many inches is feet?
/ 12 =
inches of the Earth’s history is covered by the
“Modern Era”.

10. YOUR ERA
Your lives have been dominated by world events that have happened since the year 2000.
So your era is basically the last 17 years
17 / 1,000,000 = feet or inches of the World’s mile long history.
A human hair is about .001 of an inch

11. Wrapping it all up
To summarize, the history that likely matters most to you, measures far less than the diameter of a hair on the Earth’s 1 mile history.
In groups, discuss why we only really study HUMAN history in World History when it represents such a small part of our planets total history?