Video: Humanity gets served up a nice slice of humble pie in this NPR video that lays out the history of our planet on a football field. Even in a giant stadium, every inch represents an incredible 1.3 million years – that’s around 511,000 years for every centimetre. Which means that humans, who walk around like they own the place, only show up about a third of a centimetre from the end zone.
The video is a great way to visualise 4.5 billion years of history, which is too staggering a number for most of us to wrap our heads around. But laid out on a football field, you start to realise how late to the game us humans really are.