One game some people like to play is to imagine the entire history of the world could be condensed into one single 24-hour period. The exercise underlines not only just how old the world is (over 4.5 billion years) but how late in the day, most of the things we know of developed. On this scale, there was no life at all until 4am, no single-celled algae until 2.08 pm, no dinosaurs until 10.56pm and no humans until 11.58:43pm. The entire span of human history occurred in just the last 77 seconds of the Earth’s 24-hour existence.

Fascinating though this is, I also find it difficult to comprehend. As I like to focus almost entirely on human history, I wonder if we can do a similar exercise to help us understand our own history better.

Let us imagine then instead, for no particular reason, that the present time is midnight but as we look back on the past day, rather than 60 minutes passing with every hour, instead a full 60 years has passed just since 11pm. The London Olympic Games (2012) thus occurred only nine minutes ago. The long hot summer of 1976 (the year I was born) occurred as recently as 11.16pm. And for all the 1,440 minutes that made up the 24 hours of the day, instead 1,440 years have gone by.

Yesterday would thus have begun in the year 581 AD. 12 noon would have occurred during the medieval period in 1251. 6pm, teatime, would have been at 1661, one minute after Charles II was restored to the throne (1660), four minutes before the Great Plague (1665) and five minutes before the Great Fire of London (1666). Got it?

To begin at the beginning, I’m often horrified by how long the Dark Ages seem to have lasted. They are called the Dark Ages because relatively little is known about them although I imagine they often must have been dark in other ways too, largely because everything was lit by candlelight and also because it must just have been a pretty grim time to live through. From the departure of the Romans in the 5th century (shortly before our own 1440 year day begins) until about the year 800, nothing much seems to have really happened. It seems like such a waste. Today the gap between now and 300 years ago (1721) seems vast. Was there really very much difference between the world of 500 and 800 AD? At least, the Dark Ages cover the darkest bit of the actual day on our scale here – the hours before 3am when it is still essentially night.

What next? The Norman Conquest would not occur until 8.05am (1066). The medieval period would only end around the time of Columbus’s voyage to the New World in mid-afternoon 3.09pm (1492). The Civil War (the 1640s) would have occurred in the early evening while the industrial revolution (about 1780) would have only started at around 8pm. Almost all of Queen Victoria’s long reign passed between 9pm and 10pm while the two biggest wars in human history both occurred within a period of just over half and hour between 10pm and 11pm (1914-18 and 1939-45 or 10.13pm to 10.17pm and 10.38pm to 10.34pm on our scale).

Everyone currently alive on Earth was born in the last two hours (since 1903). No one had ever flown in an aeroplane at 10.02pm. At 10.50pm, the Festival of Britain was held (1951). At 11pm exactly (1961), the first man travelled into space. At 11.08pm, the first man walked on the Moon. England last won the football World Cup 55 minutes ago (1966). Charles and Diana married at 11.20pm (1981). The Queen’s Silver Jubilee was at 11.16pm and her Golden and Diamond ones were at 11.41pm and 11.51pm (2002 and 2011). For better or worse. Boris Johnson became Prime Minister at 11.58pm (2019) and Euro 2020 and the Tokyo Olympics both occurred in the 30 seconds leading up to midnight, i.e. the present moment.

It’s all a matter of perspective.