Chart Five shows us the vast, dizzying expanses of the first three-quarters of all of earth's history, when life began, and beyond - to 10 billion years ago, before the formation of this planet, or the solar system, or even this galaxy.

Much of this window is occupied by the Archaean and Proterozoic Æons, a time before eukaryotes, when bacteria ruled the earth under a strange atmosphere, and virtually all life was in the oceans. At the top of the window, global photosynthesis by cyanobacteria has just begun to add significant amounts of oxygen to our atmosphere, and eukaryotes appear.