The History of the World in 300 Words

So I’m reading that book A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson and for no good reason at all except that I love history, I was inspired to challenge myself to write a history of the world in 300 words or less. I came in at exactly 300 words. I’m sure there are omissions but hay-soos, it’s hard! And of course, a little silly.

The History of the Entire World in 300 Words

by Julie Gray

Standing up and apparently eating an apple

FIRE followed by that bone throw thing from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

Pyramids built by aliens

Cave art of animals and aliens

Effing up the Neanderthals. Karma: frozen to death on mountaintops

Domesticating animals, having like huts, learning how to farm

GODS, sacrifice and social structure

Papyrus, cuneiform, story telling

Hammurabi writes “laws” on a rock

JUDAISM is invented. Flaming bush, red sea, feast/famine, etc.

Pharaohs, warlords, epic poems, sea battles

The word “Trojan” is invented

EMPIRES rise and fall: Romans, Turks, you name it

BUDDHA sits under that tree

CHRISTIANITY pretty much takes over

ISLAM invents calligraphy, algebra and that Scheherezade chick

art art art

Voyages, mapping and conquering other lands across the sea

Bigger cities, plagues, rats. Plays, puppets and minstrels try to help out

art art art

Astronomy, laws of physics and the human body

art art art art

COLONIES

Guns, medicine, maps, manifest destiny

art art art

The industrial age, machines, factories

Little tiny child workers

Robber barons, trains, phones, electricity

Giant ship sinks

BIGGER WARS with more WEAPONS

Math, science, psychology, relativity, penicillin and stuff

WORLD WARS with more weapons

Technology, bombs, atoms, bunsen burners

National Geographic is invented

Communism is invented. Kills czars and virtually everybody else

SECOND WORLD WAR with more weapons

Commies “settle in” for the “long haul”

Sputnik

I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver

Space travel, moog synthesizers, LSD

REGIONAL WARS with chemical weapons

art music art music

Disco, Pong, Carl Sagan

Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, EMAIL

Nano technology, string theory. Math + science reveals CRAZY stuff

GUERILLA WARS and splintering of nations/colonies/tribes

That movie AVATAR is invented

The faint whisper, held by the minority, that maybe all is not what it

Seems

GETS LOUDER

And starts making sense.