BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS

Earth is midway between its beginning and its ending.  It came into being several billion years ago and will cease to exist in another few billion.  Before the sun burns out it will have heated the Earth up to the point where it becomes uninhabitable.  Even before this, there is a good chance that the solar system will become involved in the devastating effects of our galaxy colliding with its nearest galactic neighbor.  Either way, prior to being absorbed by some future black hole, nothing but rubble or molten debris will be left of the planet that now is home to billions of humans and countless numbers of plants and animals.

After the Earth developed from components of the original dense mass that blew up to produce our universe, it took millions of years before the right conditions were in place to permit the first rudimentary organisms to flourish and many millions more before living things made their way from oceans to primeval land masses.  Eons went by before recognizable primates began walking on Earth and many thousands of years more elapsed before Homo sapiens made its appearance.  In the greater scheme of things, human history is but a minor blip.

Initially, the most effective way for human beings to survive was by forming tribes that hunted and eventually farmed as units.  As agricultural activities became more specialized, division of labor enabled higher levels of production to be achieved by those tribes that ceased to be nomadic and began raising crops and animals.  This permitted larger and larger groups to flourish and also gave rise to surpluses that could be put to use in ways not just intended for survival purposes. 

Continued innovations in the implements used to produce agricultural goods, as well as weapons, enabled nations in China, northern Africa, and southern Europe to gain hegemony over surrounding areas, thus permitting the aggrandizement of power and wealth.  In turn, the availability of material and human resources gave the ruling classes the means to erect large memorials to themselves and their societies, such as pyramids, great walls, fortresses, and monuments. 

Later on came the Greeks and Romans who left behind edifices that show the grandeur of their societies.  In Latin America, pyramids and large stone structures were constructed.  Over several thousand years, cathedrals were erected in Europe, along with forts and castles.