Timeline of Creation – According to present day scientific discoveries
Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago – Emergence of the universal and cosmic background radiation. Numerous thresholds where chemistry and physics both at the nuclear level and at the visible levels take place.
12 billion years ago – Stars and galaxies.
4.6 billion years ago – Solar system emerges.
3.8 billion years ago – Life on earth and increased level of oxygen.
600 million years ago – After millions of years of a sterile period, bacteria appear along tidal pools leading to multi-cellular organisms. Most prominent is the jelly fish which is without basic sensation and motor response.
500 million years ago – First vertebrates with forebrain, mid- and hindbrain appear.
400 million years ago – Sharks and amphibians appear.
300 million years ago – Reptiles and winged insects with traces of social organization appear.
300 million years ago – Pangaea is formed = Supercontinent.
250 million years ago – Mammals and dinosaurs appear.
200 million years ago – First birds (well-developed visual system) appear.
150 million years ago – First flowering plants appear.
100 million years ago – India breaks away from Antarctica.
60 million years ago – North America splits from Europe. Atlantic Ocean is born.
45 million years ago – India collides with Eurasia and Himalayas rise from the ocean.
25 million years ago – Grass and herbivores appear.
20 million years ago – Apes and Monkeys separate.
7 million years ago – Hominids and early bi-pedals appear, then Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus and others, such as Neanderthals.
7 million years ago – Chimpanzee and Hominids separate. Improved tools and empathy.
2 million years ago – Homo Habilis with double brain size appears.
500,000 years ago – Complex tools and increased brain size develop.
150,000 years ago – Homo Sapiens appear, with agricultural instruments, innovations in speech, skills and teaching (the earliest skeletal remains of modern humans are dated 160,000 years ago, or earlier, with a brain capacity three times that of early Hominids).
120,000 years ago – Evidence emerges of burial rituals (afterlife) and recognition of ‘heavenly power’.
70,000 years ago – Migration out of Africa.
10,000 years ago – Agriculture.
6,000 years ago – Writing.
5,000 years ago – Civilizations.
600 years ago – Printing press.
200 years ago – Industrial Revolution.
50 years ago and today – Computers, Laptops and Cyberspace access.
References:
Haeri, Shaykh Fadhlalla. The Story of Creation in the Qur’an: A Sufi Interpretation (pp. 17-19). Zahra Publications. Kindle Edition.
