Actually, all you have to do is follow the fossil evidence and it's quite simple. Sure, it's simpler to believe that some all powerful being created everything in the universe just so that we can thank him for it. But that is just intellectually lazy and really, really insulting to your God. Like he doesn’t have something better to do then create a universe just so he can hear you thank him.
I suggest you read a bit more. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson gives a wonderful, simple explanation of history up until now and sites all kinds of wonderful facts and where you can go and see them yourself. Other then that, just about every decent national history museum has a model showing the progression of man (along with all kinds of other plants, animals…) over the last couple hundred thousand years. It’s all very easy to understand if you just look at the facts.
Besides, most people just don't believe in your version of God. You see, religion changes and evolves over time. And what is seen as the word of God today will be laughed at by the people of the future - just as we laugh at what the people 2,000 years ago thought was true. Religion is here to let people feel like they aren't alone in the universe and explain the things that they cannot understand.
I don’t understand the blind faith of people’s religious beliefs. That’s not to say that I don’t understand the premises, rules, customs and dogmas - those I understand emphatically. What I cannot comprehend is how someone can have absolute blind faith towards one religious belief while brushing aside all others as not as correct as their own. Strictly on blind faith, the only difference between Christianity, Hindi and a belief that your pet goldfish is the ultimate creator of the universe is the numbers which follow each belief. And alone, without the support of those numbers, the person who believes Jesus Christ once visited the earth as the son of God has nothing more to offer as substantiation then the person who believes in the divineness of his aquatic deity.
So, that is why there are so many Atheists out there. They're just people who can't pretend that they believe in all of the ever changing fairy tales of dogma and momentary relief from reality. Personally, I love reality and love life. Not knowing something drives me to try to figure it out. I will never just say, "Oh, God did it" when I know that someday someone will explain it to someone else and we will all then understand how that thing works. Believing in religion is just taking the easy way out and not ever experiencing the true love of understanding and knowledge.
EDIT:
Ok, here is the Timeline of life on Earth
Date Event
4600 MYA The planet Earth forms from the accretion disk revolving around the young Sun.
4450 MYA Formation of the Moon, Earth's natural satellite, from a huge collision between Earth and a Mars-sized planet called Theia.
4100 MYA The surface of the Earth cools down enough for the crust to solidify. The atmosphere and the oceans form
["However, once the Earth cooled sufficiently, sometime in the first 700 million years of its existence, clouds began to form in the atmosphere, and the Earth entered a new phase of development." How the Oceans Formed (URL accessed on January 9, 2005)].
4000 MYA Life appears, possibly derived from self-reproducing RNA molecules. These molecules copying/reproducing/replicating required resources like energy, space and smaller building blocks, which soon became limited, resulting in competition. Natural selection favors those molecules which are more efficient at replication. The atmosphere does not contain any free oxygen.
3900 MYA Late Heavy Bombardment: peak rate of impact events upon the Earth, Moon, Mars and Venus by asteroids and comets (planetesimals); this constant disturbance may have encouraged life to evolve (See: Panspermia). It is thought these impacts would have boiled the oceans away completely, more than once; yet life persisted
[" Between about 3.8 billion and 4.5 billion years ago, no place in the solar system was safe from the huge arsenal of asteroids and comets left over from the formation of the planets. Sleep and Zahnle calculate that Earth was probably hit repeatedly by objects up to 500 kilometers across" Geophysicist Sleep: Martian underground may have harbored early life (URL accessed on January 9, 2005)].
Cells resembling prokaryotes appear. These first organisms are chemoautotrophs: they use carbon dioxide as a carbon source and oxidize inorganic materials to extract energy. Later, prokaryotes evolve glycolysis, a set of chemical reactions that free the energy of organic molecules such as glucose. Glycolysis generates ATP molecules as short term energy currency and is used in almost all organisms unchanged to this day. Lifetime of the Last universal ancestor, the split between the bacteria and the archaea occurs.
3500 MYA Bacteria develop primitive forms of photosynthesis which at first do not produce oxygen. These organisms generate ATP by exploiting a proton gradient, a mechanism still used in virtually all organisms.
3000 MYA Photosynthesizing cyanobacteria evolve; they use water as reductant, thereby producing oxygen as waste product. The oxygen initially oxidizes dissolved iron in the oceans, creating iron ore. Then the oxygen concentration in the atmosphere rises, acting as a poison for many bacteria.
2500 MYA Some bacteria evolve the ability to utilize oxygen to more efficiently use the energy from organic molecules such as glucose. Virtually all organisms using oxygen employ the same set of reactions, the citric acid cycle and oxidative phosphorylation.
2100 MYA More complex cells appear: the eukaryotes, which contain various organelles. The closest relatives of these are probably the Archaea. Most have organelles which are probably derived from symbiotic bacteria: mitochondria, which use oxygen to extract energy from organic molecules and appear similar to today's Rickettsia, and often chloroplasts, which derive energy from light and synthesize organic molecules and originated from cyanobacteria and similar forms. This is an example of co-evolution.
2000 MYA Creation of 300km wide Vredefort Crater in South Africa. Formation of bottom layer of Grand Canyon. The top layer formed 250MYA.
1850 MYA Creation of 300km wide Sudbury Crater in Canada.
1780 MYA In Gabon, West Africa, a uranium deposit acts as a natural nuclear reactor. A chain reaction begins on its own and lasts for a billion years.
1200 MYA Sexual reproduction evolves and leads to faster evolution
["'Experiments with sex have been very hard to conduct,' Goddard said. 'In an experiment, one needs to hold all else constant, apart from the aspect of interest. This means that no higher organisms can be used, since they have to have sex to reproduce and therefore provide no asexual control.'
]
Goddard and colleagues instead turned to a single-celled organism, yeast, to test the idea that sex allows populations to adapt to new conditions more rapidly than asexual populations." Sex Speeds Up Evolution, Study Finds (URL accessed on January 9, 2005). While most life occurs in oceans and lakes, some cyanobacteria may already live in moist soil by this time.
1000 MYA Multicellular organisms appear: initially colonial algae and later, seaweeds, living in the oceans.
[" What, then, was the selective advantage that led to the evolution of multicellular organisms?" From Single Cells to Multicellular Organisms (URL accessed on January 9, 2005)]
1000-750 MYA The first known supercontinent, Rodinia, forms and then breaks apart again. It was a stark and hostile place.
900 MYA There are 481 18-hour days in a year. Spin of the Earth slows down ever since.
750-580 MYA According to the Snowball Earth hypothesis, the Precambrian ice age is so severe that the Earth's oceans freeze over completely; only in the tropics do oceans remain liquid.
600 MYA Sponges (Porifera), Jellyfish (Cnidaria), flat worms (Platyhelminthes) and other multicellular animals appear in the oceans. Cnidaria and Ctenophora are some of the earliest creatures to have neurons, in the form a simple net - no brain or nervous system.
600-540 MYA The second supercontinent, Pannotia, forms and breaks up.
565-525 MYA The Cambrian explosion, a rapid set of evolutionary changes, creates all the major body plans (phyla) of modern animals. What caused this huge expansion in the variety of life forms is still a matter of scientific debate. Arthropoda, represented by an abundance of trilobites, is the dominant phylum. Pikaia, a small swimmer of the phylum chordata, is possibly the ancestor of humans. Anomalocaris is a predator up to 2 meters in length whose living ancestor today may well be the Pycnogonid, or Sea Spider
["The evolutionary foundation for the organization of many animal body plans is segmental—we are made of rings of similar stuff, repeated over and over again along our body length" Pycnogonid tagmosis and echoes of the Cambrian
]
"Pycnogonids are primitive chelicerates related to ticks and mites, and they make their living as predators and scavengers. This one, Haliestes dasos, is the oldest sea spider known." Haliestes dasos, a sea spider
"If you were a trilobite or other small Cambrian
animal, you did NOT want to see this coming" The Anomalocaris Homepage (animation).
530 MYA First footprints on land
["The oldest fossils of footprints ever found on land hint that animals may have beaten plants out of the primordial seas. Lobster-sized, centipede-like animals made the prints wading out of the ocean and scuttling over sand dunes about 530 million years ago. Previous fossils indicated that animals didn't take this step until 40 million years later." Oldest fossil footprints on land]
505 MYA First fish (first vertebrates) are jawless. Haikouichthys and Myllokunmingia are examples of these jawless fish, or Agnatha. (See also Prehistoric fish.)
488 MYA The first of the seven major extinction events over geological time occurs at the Cambrian-Ordovician transition.
475 MYA The first primitive plants move onto land
["The oldest fossils reveal evolution of non-vascular plants by the middle to late Ordovician Period (~450-440 m.y.a.) on the basis of fossil spores" Transition of plants to land], having evolved from green algae
["The land plants evolved from the algae, more specifically green algae, as suggested by certain common
]
biochemical traits" The first land plants living along the edges of lakes. They are accompanied by fungi, and very likely plants and fungi work symbiotically together; lichens exemplify such a symbiosis.
450 MYA Arthropods, with an exoskeleton that provides support and prevents water loss
["The waxy cuticle of arachnids and insects prevents water loss and protects against desiccation" Natural history collection: arthropoda], are the first animals to invade the land
["For hundreds of millions of years, animal life resided only in the oceans. And then about 400 million years ago, fossil tracks suggest that an animal called a eurypterid left the water to walk on land. Maybe it was fleeing enemies, maybe it was searching for an easy meal, or maybe it was seeking a safe place to lay its eggs." The shape of life. The conquerors. PBS]. Among the first are Myriapoda (millipedes and centipedes), later followed by spiders and scorpions.
450-440 MYA The two Ordovician-Silurian extinction events occur. Taken together these constitute the second mass extinction event.
400 MYA First insects are without wings: silverfish, springtails, bristletails. First sharks appear
["The ancestry of sharks dates back more than 200 million years before the earliest known dinosaur. Introduction to shark evolution, geologic time and age determination]. First Coelacanth appears; thought extinct, in 1938 this species was discovered to yet persist, so it's referred to as a living fossil.
370 MYA Cladoselache, a shark, is a high speed predator
["Cladoselache was something of an oddball among ancient sharks. A four-foot (1.2-metre) long inhabitant of late Devonian seas (about 370 million years ago), it exhibited a strange combination of ancestral and derived characteristics. Ancient sharks].
365 MYA The Late Devonian extinction is the third mass extinction.
Insects evolve on land and in fresh water from the myriapods. Some fresh water lobe-finned fish (Sarcopterygii) develop legs and give rise to the Tetrapoda. This happens in the water; tetrapods (Ichthyostega , Acanthostega and Pederpes finneyae) then use their legs to move out onto land, probably to hunt insects. Lungs and swim bladders evolve. Amphibians today still retain many characteristics of the early tetrapods.
360 MYA Plants evolve seeds, structures that protect plant embryos and enable plants to spread quickly on land. Creation of Woodleigh crater (100 km wide) and Siljan Ring (40 km wide, Dalecarlia, Sweden).
360-286 MYA The golden age of sharks
["Sharks have undergone a lot of evolutionary experimentation since their earliest beginnings. Over hundreds of millions of years, sharks were tested by a mercurial and often violently changeable environment." A Golden Age of Sharks].
300 MYA The supercontinent Pangea forms and will last for 120 million years; this is the last time all of the earth's continents fuse into one. Evolution of the amniotic egg gives rise to the Amniota, reptiles, who can reproduce on land. Insects evolve flight, and include a number of different orders (e.g. Palaeodictyoptera, Megasecoptera, Diaphanopterodea, and Protorthoptera) Dragonflies (Odonata) still resemble many of these early insects. Vast forests of clubmosses (lycopods), horsetails, and tree ferns cover the land; when these decay they will eventually form coal and oil. Gymnosperms begin to diversify widely. Cycads, plants resembling palms, first appear.
280 MYA The Protodonatan dragonfly Meganeura monyi is among the biggest insects that ever lived, with a wingspan of about 2 feet. Vertebrates include many Temnospondyl, Anthrachosaur, and Lepospondyl amphibians and early anapsid and synapsid (e.g. Edaphosaurus) reptiles.
256 MYA Diictodon, Cistecephalus, Dicynodon, Lycaenops, Dinogorgon and Procynosuchus, are a few of the many mammal-like reptiles known from South Africa and Russia. Pareiasaurs were large clumsy herbivores. The first Archosauriformes.
250 MYA The Permian-Triassic extinction event wipes out about 95% of all animal species; this fourth extinction event is the most severe mass extinction known.
Lystrosaurus is a common herbivore that survives the extinction. The archosaurs split from other reptiles. Teleosts evolve from among the Actinopterygii (ray-finned fish), and eventually become the dominant fish group. Atmospheric oxygen, at 10%, is one third of its former level, so animals with air sac breathing systems will do well (present-day bird respiration exemplifies the air sac system). Some spores of bacteria Bacillus strain 2-9-3 (Sali bacillus marismortui) are trapped in salt crystals known as halite in New Mexico. They are re-animated in AD 2000 and have multiplied rapidly. Currently the world oldest living organism.
220 MYA The climate is very dry, and dry-adapted organisms are favored: the archosaurs and the Gymnosperms. Archosaurs diversify into crocodilians, dinosaurs, and pterosaurs.
From synapsids come the first mammal precursors, therapsids, and more specifically the eucynodonts. Initially, they stay small and shrew-like. All mammals have milk glands for their young, and they keep a constant body temperature. Also, one of a pair of autosomes acquires gene SRY (derived from the SOX3 gene of the X chromosome) to become the Y chromosome, which has been decreasing in length since. Gymnosperms (mostly conifers) are the dominant land plants. Plant eaters will grow to huge sizes during the dominance of the gymnosperms to have space for large guts to digest the poor food offered by gymnosperms.
208-144 MYA Second major spread of sharks
["The second major radiation of sharks occurred during the Jurassic Period, 208 to 144 million years ago. At this time, pterosaurs ruled the skies and the first birds were taking to the air." The Origin of Modern Sharks (URL accessed on January 9, 2005)].
200 MYA Fifth mass extinction event occurs at the Triassic-Jurassic transition.
Marine reptiles include Ichthyosaurs and Plesiosaurs. Ammonites and belemnites flourish. Dinosaurs survive the extinction and grow to large size, but the thecodonts, or "socket-toothed" reptiles, die out. Modern amphibians evolve: the Lissamphibia; including Anura (frogs), Urodela (salamanders), and Caecilia. Geminiviridae, a diverse group of viruses, are traceable to this epoch or earlier
["Viruses of nearly all the major classes of organisms - animals, plants, fungi and bacteria / archaea - probably evolved with their hosts in the seas, given that most of the evolution of life on this planet has occurred there. This means that viruses also probably emerged from the waters with their different hosts, during the successive waves of colonisation of the terrestrial environment." Origins of Viruses (URL accessed on January 9, 2005)].
180 MYA The supercontinent Pangea begins to break up into several land masses. The largest is Gondwana, made up of the land masses which are now Antarctica, Australia, South America, Africa, and India. Antarctica is still a land of forests. North America and Eurasia are still joined, forming the Northern supercontinent, Laurasia.
150 MYA Giant dinosaurs are common and diverse - Brachiosaurus, Apatosaurus, Stegosaurus, Allosaurus, along with smaller forms like Ornitholestes and Othneilia. Birds evolve from theropod dinosaurs. Archaeopteryx is an ancestor of birds, with claws, feathers but no beak.
135 MYA New dinosaurs Iguanodon, Hylaeosaurus, etc., appear after extinction of Jurassic forms. Microraptor gui, a 77cm long dinosaur in Liaoning, Northeast China, has bird-like feathered wings on 4 limbs.
133 MYA Jeholornis prima, primitive bird in the Jiufotang Formation of north-eastern China eats seeds. The bird had large, strong wings, and also had a long, bony tail, like many dinosaurs.
130 MYA Angiosperm plants evolve flowers, structures that attract insects and other animals to spread pollen. This innovation of the angiosperms causes a major burst of animal evolution and co-evolution.
128 MYA The earliest tyrannosaur is Dilong paradoxus in Lioning Province of China. Had feathers and a small body of 5 feet long.
123 MYA Sinornithosaurus millenii is a dinosaur in Liaoning, China that has primitive feathers not used for flight. Other dinosaurs with feathers are Sinosauropteryx (most primitive feathers, simplest tubular structures) and Changchanornis. Have common ancestor with Archaeopteryx. Other dinosaurs include Polacanthus (armoured herbivore) and Eotyrannus (early tyrannosaur).
125 MYA Eomaia scansoria, a eutherian mammal, which leads to the formation of modern placental mammals. Looks like modern dormouse, climbing small shrubs in Liaoning, China. The parrot-beaked Psittacosaurus is the ancestor of the later horned dinosaurs.
110 MYA Sarcosuchus imperator, eight tons, 12m long, head 2m long, largest crocodile. Carnivorous dinosaurs included the "raptor" Deinonychus and sail-backed semi-aquatic spinosaurs, herbivores include the tallest known sauropod Sauroposeidon proteles, as well as the bulbous-nosed iguanodont Altirhinus (ancestral to duck-bills) and the armoured Sauropelta.
100 MYA The giant theropod dinosaurs Carcharodontosaurus and Giganotosaurus are even bigger than Tyrannosaurus.
88 MYA Breakup of Indo-Malagasy land mass.
80 MYA Many kinds of sauropod, duck billed, horned and meat-eating dinosaurs; half of all known dinosaur species are from the last 30 MY of the Mesozoic, after the rise of the angiosperms. India starts moving to Eurasia.
75 MYA Last common ancestor of humans and mice
["A comparison of the two genomes reveals that both have about 30,000 genes, and they share the bulk of them—the human genome shares 99% of its genes with mice. Humans and mice diverged about 75 million years ago, too little time for many evolutionary differences to accumulate." Comparing genomes
]
" Their conclusion: although the mouse and human genomes are very similar, genome rearrangements occurred more commonly than previously believed, accounting for the evolutionary distance between human and mouse from a common ancestor 75 million years ago." The Hindu
"Mice have many more olfactory genes compared to the human. Smell matters for mice, especially for sex and mating; they also have more genes involved in reproduction (such as aphrodisin, which stimulates mating behaviour in males) and immunity" San Francisco Chronicle.
65 MYA The Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event (sixth extinction event) wipes out about half of all animal species including all non-avian dinosaurs, probably because of a cooling of the climate precipitated by the giant impact of an asteroid: iridium powder from the asteroid forms a layer that covers the whole Earth. Creation of the Chicxulub Crater (170 km across, now half-submerged off the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico).
Without the presence of the giant and diurnal dinosaurs, mammals can increase in diversity and size. Some will later return back to the sea (whales, sirenians, seals) and others will evolve flight (bats). A group of small, nocturnal and arboreal, insect-eating mammals called the Archonta branches into the primates, tree shrews, and bats. Primates have binocular vision and grasping digits, features that help them to jump from one tree branch to another. One example is Plesiadapis which is extinct by 45 million years ago.
64 MYA Lemurs cross the ocean into Madagascar from Africa mainland.
62.5 MYA North Sea (Britain) Silverpit crater 3km across created by asteroid (350m wide) impact.
60 MYA Creodont, meat eater, northern hemisphere, extinct by 5.2 million years ago, possible ancestor of Miacids.
55 MYA Australia breaks away from Antarctica. The earliest true primates, called euprimates, first appear in North America, Asia, and Europe. One example is Carpolestes simpsoni at Clarks Fork Basin of Wyoming. It has grasping digits but no forward facing eyes. Another (earliest?) euprimate Teilhardina asiatica (Hunan, China) is mouse-sized, diurnal, and has small eyes. Mako Sharks are the probable ancestor of the Great White Shark
["I also wish to completely dispel the myth that the modern Great White evolved from the megalodon shark. Is the proper way to do this to write this paper, publish it in a scientific journal, and subject it to peer review - yes? Is that what I am doing - no.......because I think there is no way to "win" with the opinions on this one as set in stone as they seem to be (on both sides)" Origin of the Modern Great White Shark (URL accessed on January 9, 2005)
]
"'Most scientists would probably say the Great Whites evolved from the megalodon line, which existed from two million to twenty million years ago. They were huge sharks, approximately the length of a Greyhound bus and possessing teeth that were up to six inches long,' explains Ciampaglio. 'However, our research, which is based on analyzing fossils of several hundred shark teeth, shows that the Great White shares more similarities with the mako shark.'"Great White Shark Evolution Debate (URL accessed on January 9, 2005)
".. most paleontologists agree [..] that Megalodon is not a direct ancestor of the modern White Shark, more like a great uncle or aunt." The Origin of Megalodon (URL accessed on January 9, 2005).
50 MYA Creation of 45km wide Nova Scotia crater. The Evolution of the horse starts with Hyracotherium: size of foxes with large nails instead of hoofs. Ancestor of whales (which include dolphins), Ambulocetus natans (Pakistan) probably walks on land like the modern sea lion and swims like modern otters. It has webbed feet that give it added power when swimming, and still hears directly from its ears. Pezosiren portelli, ancestor of modern manatees, walks like a hippo and swims like an otter. Miacids include Miacis, five claw ancestor of all dogs, cats, bears, raccoon, fox, hyena, jackal, civet; it's a meat-eating weasel-like tree climber.
48.5 MYA Gastornis geiselensis (Europe, USA), 1.75 m tall carnivorous bird, is a top predator
46.5 MYA Rodhocetus, ancestor of whale, successor to Ambulocetus, no longer needs to drink fresh water.
45 MYA Cetaceans (whales) evolve from mesonychids, carnivorous ungulates probably most closely related to the artiodactyls.
43 MYA Earliest elephant, Moeritherium (Egypt). 1m tall, size of a large pig, eat soft, juicy plants. Long noses, but no trunks nor tusks.
40 MYA Primates (order) diverge into suborders Strepsirrhini (lemurs and lorises) and Haplorrhini (tarsiers, monkeys and apes); the latter is diurnal and herbivorous.
37 MYA Creation of 100km wide Popagai crater in Siberia. Basilosaurus, up to 20m long, snakelike ancestor of whales, has reduced but well-developed hind limbs. Hears from sounds transmitted to middle ears through vibrations from lower jaws. In Egypt's 'Whale Valley', what would later be the Wadi Hitan desert is underwater, teeming with Basilosaurus isis which had no blowhole but had to raise its head above water to breathe. Early ancestors of strepsirrhines primate appear in the Egyptian desert, Biretia fayumensis and Biretia megalopsis.
["Researchers have discovered fossilized remains of two previously unknown primate species that lived 37 million years ago in what is now the Egyptian desert." "The discovery, researchers say, is evidence that the common ancestor of living anthropoids arose in Africa and that anthropoids have been evolving on the now separated Africa-Arabia landmass for at least 45 million years." New Primate Fossils Support "Out of Africa" Theory (URL accessed on January 9, 2005)].
35 MYA An impact forms an 85km wide crater which becomes the Chesapeake Bay.
Grasses evolve from among the angiosperms.
30 MYA Haplorrhini (suborder) splits into infraorders Platyrrhini (New World monkeys) and Catarrhini (Old World primates). New World monkeys have prehensile tails and migrate to South America. Catarrhines stay in Africa as the two continents drift apart. One ancestor of catarrhines might be Aegyptopithecus. New World monkey males are color blind. Haplorrhines: Bugtipithecus inexpectans, Phileosimias kamali and Phileosimias brahuiorum, similar to today's lemurs, live in rainforests on Bugti Hills of central Pakistan. Ancestor of all cats, 9kg Proailurus, lives in trees in Europe, goes extinct 20 million years ago.
27.5 MYA Indricothere, rhino relative, 4.5m tall, tallest mammal on land, lives in Mongolia.
27 MYA Phorusrhacos longissimus (Terror Bird) 2.5m tall in the Americas. Extinct by 15,000 years ago.
25 MYA Catarrhini males gain color vision but lose the pheromone pathway
[" Once humans could see in color the visual inspection of a potential mate yielded far more useful information and at a greater distance than was the case with scents. As a result of natural selection color-seeing primates came to have neuronal wiring that caused them to place much more importance on appearance in mate choice. In Zhang's view it is therefore not coincidental that around the time human males developed the ability to see color humans also lost the ability to respond to pheromones" Evolution Of Color Eyesight Led To Loss Of Pheromone Response (URL accessed on January 9, 2005)]. Catarrhini (infraorder)(Old World primates) splits into 2 superfamilies, Old World monkeys (Cercopithecoidea) and apes (Hominoidea). The Old World primates do not have prehensile tails (e.g. Baboon); some do not have tails at all. All hominoids are without tails.
22 MYA India collides with Asia, causing the rise of Himalaya and the Tibetan plateau. Cut off from the humidity, Central Asia becomes a desert. Appearance of deinotherium, ancient elephant, extinct by 2 million years ago. Evolving from an animal that looks part dog, part bear and part raccoon, the dawn bear (Ursavus elmensis) was the ancestor of all bears living today. It's the size of a fox, hunts in the tree tops, and supplements a diet of meat with plant material and insects. The first group, the Ailuropodinae, follows a plant-based diet, branches off, and only one member, the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), survives today.
21 MYA A mongoose-like creature floats to Madagascar from Africa on a raft of vegetation. Becomes ancestor of all carnivorous mammals there.
20 MYA The African plate collides with Asia. Cynodictis, ancestor of dogs, have a shortened fifth claw which foreshadows the dewclaw (vestigial) of modern dogs. They look like the modern day civet and have feet and toes suited for running. The two superfamilies of carnivores (canines and felines) were distinct. Gomphotherium, ancient elephant.
19 MYA Megatherium americanum (giant sloth 6m long). Extinct 8000 years ago.
16 MYA Squalodon shows early echolocation of whales. Megalodon is a gigantic shark the size of a greyhound bus
[""'At a length of 50 feet (15 metres) and a mass of over 52 tons (47 tonnes), it would take more than a mere morsel to satisfy the megalodon.'"" The Origin of Megalodon (URL accessed on January 9, 2005)], has a long reign, disappears suddenly about 1.6 MYA.
15 MYA Apes from Africa migrate to Eurasia to become gibbons (lesser apes) and orangutans. Human ancestors speciate from the ancestors of the gibbon. Orangutans, gorillas and chimpanzees are great apes. Humans are hominins.
13 MYA Human ancestors speciate from the ancestors of the orangutan. A relative of orangutans:- Lufengpithecus chiangmuanensis (Northern Thailand). Pierolapithecus catalaunicus, Spain, common ancestor of great apes and humans.
10 MYA The climate begins to dry; savannas and grasslands take over the forests. Monkeys proliferate, and the apes go into decline. Human ancestors speciate from the ancestors of the gorillas. This is the heyday of the horses as they spread throughout the Northern hemisphere. After 10 MYA they decline in the face of competition from the artiodactyls. Tomarctus, ancestor of dogs, is an extremely dog like animal.
7 MYA Biggest primate Gigantopithecus is 2m tall and lives in China (Gigantopithecus blacki), Vietnam, and northern India (Gigantopithecus bilaspurensis). Extinct by 300,000 years ago.
5.6 MYA Drying up of the Mediterranean Sea (the Messinian Event).
5 MYA Volcanoes erupt and create the small area of land that joins North and South America. Mammals from North America move South and cause extinction of mammals there.
Human ancestors speciate from the ancestors of the chimpanzees. The latest common ancestor is Sahelanthropus tchadensis (Chad, Sahara, west of Rift Valley). The earliest in the human branch is Orrorin tugenensis (Millennium Man, Kenya). Chimpanzees and humans share 98% of DNA: biochemical similarities are so great that their hemoglobin molecules differ by only one amino acid; but the 2% of different DNA explains why, for example, chimps cannot speak. One group of chimps can have more genetic diversity than all of the six billion humans alive today, due to later population bottlenecking on the human lineage. Both chimpanzees and humans have a larynx that repositions during the first two years of life to a spot between the pharynx and the lungs, indicating that the common ancestors have this feature, a precursor of speech.
4.4 MYA Ardipithecus ramidus ramidus (Hominin? Walks upright most of the time? Still spend time on trees?)
3.7 MYA Some Australopithecus afarensis left footprints on volcanic ash in Laetoli, Kenya (Northern Tanzania).
3.5 MYA Orangutans diverge into Bornean (Pongo pygmaeus) and Sumatran (Pongo abelii) sub-species. Great White Sharks appear.
3 MYA The bipedal australopithecines (early hominins) evolve in the savannas of Africa being hunted by Dinofelis. Species include Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus bosei. Other genus include Kenyanthropus platyops.
Gorillas die out on the South bank of the Congo River. North and South America become joined, allowing migration of animals. Modern horses, Equus first appear. Deinotherium (4m tall), is a gigantic cousin of the elephant, with downward pointing tusks in the lower jaw.
2.5 MYA Smilodon (Saber-toothed cat) appears.
2.2 MYA Gorillas diverge into the Western lowland (Gorilla gorilla) and Eastern (Gorilla beringei) sub-species.
2 MYA Homo habilis (handy man) uses primitive stone tools (choppers) in Tanzania. Probably lives with Paranthropus robustus. Emergence of Broca's area (speech region of modern human brain). Homo species are meat-eating while Paranthropus eats plants and termites. Some chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) at the Southern part of the Congo River branch off to form the Bonobos (Pan paniscus/ pigmy chimps). Bonobos live in female dominated society. Saber Tooth moves from North America to South America.
1.8 MYA Homo erectus evolves in Africa and migrates to other continents, primarily South Asia.
1.75 MYA Dmanisi man/Homo georgicus (Georgia, Russia), tiny brain came from Africa, with Homo erectus and Homo habilis characteristics. An individual spent the last years of his life with only one tooth by depending on the kindness and compassion of others to obtain sufficient sustenance.
The glyptodon, a giant armadillo the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, lives in southern Peru.
1.6 MYA Biggest marsupials: Appearance of Giant Short-faced Kangaroo (Procoptodon goliah) in Australia, extinct by 40,000 years ago. At 2m to 3m tall and weighing 200kg to 300kg, it is the largest kangaroo ever known. Wombat-like Diprotodon optatum, 2,800 kg, 3m long, Australia, extinct by 45,000 years ago.
1.5 MYA Marsupial lion (Thylacoleo carnifex or Leo) appears in Australia and goes extinct by 46,000 years ago.
1 MYA Genus Canis (coyotes, jackals, wolves, dingoes, domestic dogs) develops as a branch from Tomarctus. The gray fox, Urocyon cinereogenteus is the most primitive canid still alive today.
800 kYA Gray Wolf (Canis lupus) moves to Arctic North America.
780 kYA The Earth's last (most recent) geomagnetic reversal.
700 kYA Common genetic ancestor of humans and Neanderthals.
500 kYA Volcanoes create the island of Hawaii. Homo erectus (Choukoutien, China) uses charcoal to control fire, though they may not know how to create or start it.
400 kYA Eastern gorillas (Gorilla beringei) diverge into the eastern lowland (G. beringei graueri) and mountain (G. beringei beringei) sub-species. Giant deer Megaloceros giganteus, Ireland; the antlers together span about 3.6m or larger, extinct by 9.5 kYA.
355 kYA Three 1.5m tall Homo heidelbergensis scramble down Roccamonfina volcano in Southern Italy, leaving the earliest known Homo footprints, which were made before the powdery volcanic ash solidified.
300 kYA Creation of 900m wide Wolfe Creek Crater in Western Australia's Wolfe Creek Crater National Park.
250 kYA The Polar Bear evolves from an isolated high latitude population of Brown Bears.
195 kYA Omo1, Omo2 (Ethiopia, Omo river) are the earliest known Homo sapiens.
160 kYA Homo sapiens (Homo sapiens idaltu) in Ethiopia, Awash River, Herto village, practise mortuary rituals and butcher hippos. Their dead bodies are later covered by volcanic rocks.
150 kYA Mitochondrial Eve lives in Africa. She is the last female ancestor common to all mitochondrial lineages in humans alive today.
130 kYA Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthal man) evolves from Homo heidelbergensis and lives in Europe and the Middle East, makes magic, buries the dead and cares for the sick. Has hyoid bone (60,000 yrs ago, Kebara cave, Israel), used for speech in modern humans. (Today humans use roughly 6000 spoken languages). Uses spear, probably for stabbing rather than throwing. FOXP2 gene appears (associated with the development of speech).
100 kYA The first anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) appear in Africa by this time or earlier; they derive from Homo heidelbergensis. Homo sapiens (humans) live in South Africa (Klasies River Mouth) and Israel (Qafzeh and Skhul), probably alongside Neanderthals. Modern humans enter Asia via two routes: one North through the Middle East, and another further South from Ethiopia, via the Red Sea and southern Arabia. (See: Single-origin hypothesis). Mutation causes skin color changes in order to absorb optimal UV light for different geographical latitudes. Modern "race" formation begins. African populations remain more 'diverse' in their genetic makeup than all other humans, since only a subset of their population (and therefore only a subset of their diversity) leaves Africa. For example, mtDNA shows that an individual with English ancestors is more similar genetically to an individual with Japanese ancestors than are two individuals drawn from two African populations.
82.5 kYA Humans in Zaire fish using sharp blades spears made from animal bones.
80 kYA Humans make bone harpoons in Katanda, Democratic Republic of Congo.
74 kYA Supervolcanoic eruption in Toba, Sumatra, Indonesia, causes Homo sapiens population to crash to 2,000. Six years without a summer are followed by a 1,000 year ice-age. Volcanic ash up to 5m deep covers India and Pakistan.
70 kYA The most recent ice age, the Wisconsin glaciation, begins.
Humans in the Blombos cave in South Africa make tools from bones, show symbolic thinking by creating ochre paintings. They also collect and pierce holes through sea shells to make necklaces. Giant beavers (Castoroides ohioensis, Toronto, Canada) largest rodents, length up to 2.5m, dies out 10,000 years ago.
60 kYA Y-chromosomal Adam lives in Africa. He is the last male human from whom all current human Y chromosomes are descended.
50 kYA Modern humans expand from Asia to Australia (to become today's aborigines) and Europe. Expansion along the coasts happens faster than expansion inland. Woolly rhino (Coelodonta antiquus) in Britain.
40 kYA Cro-Magnon Humans paint and hunt mammoths in France. They have extraordinary cognitive powers equivalent to modern humans, which enable them to become predators/hunters at the top of the food chain. Extinction of gigantic marsupials in Australia, probably due to humans, results in the lack of domesticated animals, partially leading to the relatively primitive lifestyle of the humans there, later, when compared to the rest of the world.
37 kYA Creation of 1.2km wide Meteor Barringer Crater in Arizona. Due to the heat of the impact, sedimentary rock lying in-situ transforms into metamorphic rock.
32 kYA First sculpture found in Vogelherd, Germany. First (bird bone) flute found in France. Stone tools in Kota Tampan, Malaysia.
30 kYA Modern humans enter North America from Siberia in numerous waves, some later waves across the Bering land bridge, but early waves probably by island-hopping across the Aleutians. At least two of the first waves left few or no genetic descendants among Americans by the time Europeans arrive across the Atlantic Ocean. Humans reach Solomons. Humans move into Japan. Bow and arrows used in Sahara (grassland). Fired ceramic animal models made in Moravia (Czech).
28 kYA Oldest painting: in the Apollo 11 Rock Shelter Oldest known painting: in the Apollo 11 Rock Shelter
["These stones were found in association with charcoal which has been dated to between 19,000 and 26,000 years old (Wendt 1974, 1976). Border Cave in Kwazulu has yielded engraved bone and wood dated between 35,000 and 37,500 years old (Butzer et al 1979); and a 20,000 year old incised stone was found at Matupi Cave, Zaire (Van Noten 1977)." Introduction to upper palaeolithic art (URL accessed on January 9, 2005)]., Namibia, Africa. A 20cm-long, 3cm-wide object found in Hohle Fels Cave near Ulm in the Swabian Jura in Germany is the earliest sculpted stone penis
["The 20cm-long, 3cm-wide stone object, which is dated to be about 28,000 years old, was buried in the famous Hohle Fels Cave near Ulm in the Swabian Jura. " Ancient phallus unearthed in cave (URL accessed on January 9, 2005)].
27 kYA Neanderthals die out leaving Homo sapiens and Homo floresiensis as the only living species of the genus Homo. Czech invented textile and pressed weaving patterns into pieces of clay before firing them.
25 kYA Throwing sticks for hunting animals made from mammoth tusk (Poland).
23 kYA Venus of Willendorf, a small statuette of a female figure, discovered at a paleolithic site near Willendorf, Austria, dates from this era.
20 kYA Humans leave foot and hand prints in Tibetan plateau. Oil lamps made from animal fats on shells used in caves in Grotte de la Mouthe, France. Bone needles used to sew animal hides. (Shandingdong Man, China). Microblade culture (Northern China). Mammoth bones used to build houses (Russia).
18 kYA Homo floresiensis existed in the Liang Bua limestone cave on Flores, remote Indonesian island.
15 kYA The last Ice Age ends. Sea levels across the globe rise, flooding many coastal areas, and separating former mainland areas into islands. Japan separates from Asia mainland. Siberia separates from Alaska. Tasmania separates from Australia. Java island forms. Sarawak, Malaysia and Indonesia separate. One group of humans in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East develop agriculture and, as a result of the benefits it brings, permanent settlements and cities. These appear first in what is now Iraq. This process of food production, coupled later with the domestication of available animals caused a massive increase in human population that has continued to the present. In this time, also, the cave paintings of Lascaux and Altamira were produced.
13.5 kYA Clovis culture in North America.
11.5 kYA Extinction of the Sabertooth (Smilodon).
11 kYA Human population reaches 5 million. Extinction of Homo floresiensis?
Extinction of woolly mammoth. Domestication of dogs (first domesticated animal) from Grey Wolf subspecies (Canis lupus pallipes). All modern dogs today (5 main groups, about 400 breeds) belong to a single subspecies Canis lupus familiaris.
10.4 kYA Jericho (modern Israel) settlement with about 19,000 people. Plant domestication begins with cultivation of Neolithic founder crops in Near East.
10 kYA Sahara is green with rivers, lakes, cattles, crocodiles and monsoons. Japan's hunter-gatherer Jomon culture creates world earliest pottery. Humans reach Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America, the last continental region to be inhabited by humans (excluding Antarctica).
9.5 kYA Catalhoyuk (modern Turkey) settlement - earliest "city" .
8 kYA Domestic wheat Triticum aestivum originated in southwest Asia, Syria, Jordan, Turkey, and Iraq, due to hybridisation of emmer wheat with a goat-grass, Aegilops tauschii.
6.5 kYA Two rice species were domesticated: Asian rice Oryza sativa and African rice Oryza glaberrima.
5 kYA Humans start using bronze tools.
4.7 kYA Oldest tree still alive today sprouts, a bristlecone pine named "Methuselah"
["Earth's oldest living inhabitant "Methuselah" at 4,767 years, has lived more than a millennium longer than any other tree." The ancient bristlecone pine (URL accessed on January 9, 2005)].
4 kYA Recorded history begins.
3 kYA Humans start using iron tools.
AD 1 Human population 150 million.
AD 500 Humans reach Hawaii (from Fiji). Humans reach Madagascar (from Indonesia via India)
AD 1000 Human population 300 million. Humans reach New Zealand from Eastern Polynesia.
AD 1760 Industrial Revolution.
AD 1835 Human population 1 billion.
AD 1911 Humans reach south pole.
AD 1926 Humans reach north pole.
AD 1945 First use of nuclear weapons.
AD 1953 Humans reach Everest summit (8848m).
AD 1960 Humans reach Marianas Trench (deepest water on earth at 11 km down)
AD 1961 Humans enter earth orbit.
AD 1969 Humans walk on the moon.
AD 2000 Human population 6 billion.
AD 2002 Humans document their own genome (Human Genome Project).
AD 2006 Human population coming up on 6.5 billion
[An United States Census Bureau estimate of the number of people alive on Earth at any given moment. United States census bureau].
The link below is to all of the above references, where you can find them, the way that they were test and turned into facts.