"You asked me to write a history of Foggy Bottom", I replied, straddling between defensiveness and aggravation. "And this is the first installment."
"That is correct", Higgenbothom conceded. "I did ask you to do a history of Foggy Bottom. But what is all this stuff about the Big Bang?"
"You told me to begin at the beginning", I replied.
"The beginning...", he repeated ponderously as though he were replying to himself this time. "Yes, the beginning", he repeated, again.
"Well?" I asked cautiously.
"Yes, er, well, yes, this is exactly what I had in mind. Please continue."
"Thank you, I will", I injected before he could change his mind.
"But how much longer before we actually get to Foggy Bottom?" he asked. "And don't give me one of those 'one-year map of the universe' answers."
"Why, the next installment", I replied. "The Asian hominids will reach Foggy Bottom in.."
He put up his hand in mock protest. "Save it, my boy. Save it for the article. Im going to see if I can get some ad spots from the Physics Club or the Anthropology Department. You can just get busy on getting those hominids over here."
And so, I did.
Early humans started drifting out of sub Saharan Africa about one hundred thousand years ago. Some stayed, of course, to build pyramids. The pyramids were built around twelve seconds before midnight on New Year's Eve on the one-year map of the universe. It seems like a long time ago. But it was really only twelve seconds.
The ones that left began to populate the globe. Some headed north-northwest and became the European hominids. Others headed east and became the Asian hominids. They did not refer to themselves in this way. Their neo cortexes had not yet developed to the point where they felt compelled to name everything.
It took fifty thousand years to get from Africa to Central Asia. Modern travelers, who complain about having to sit in an airport for two hours, would not even consider a trip that would take fifty thousand years. You would think that all the travel agents would have gone out of business. But travel agents had not been invented yet. For that matter, business had not been invented yet either.
The Asian hominids mulled around Central Asia for a while and then got restless and had to move on. Around twenty thousand years ago they began drifting across a land bridge that connected Asia and North America.
North America had a great climate. The last major ice age was ending and the glaciers were receding. Some of the rodents, who outlived the large reptiles, but did not evolve into hominids, evolved instead into all manner of large hairy mammals, which the Asian hominids could hunt. And hunt them they did. Within about ten thousand years (twenty four seconds on the one-year map of the universe) all of the large hairy mammals were extinct.
If you asked the Asian hominids if they felt even the slightest twinge of guilt over exterminating the large hairy mammals, they would probably just shrug and said, "hey, dont blame us. They fell behind the evolutionary curve."
And this was largely true. While the hominids learned to walk erect, use tools, model the world in their neo cortexes, form social groups and use language to coordinate their activities, the large hairy mammals became larger and hairier. When it came to a showdown, there was really no contest.
As these Asian hominids spread out across the continent over the next ten millennia, some settled in the plains, some headed for South America, and others headed east. The eastward heading Asian hominids found their way to the Potomac River valley about nine thousand years ago. Other hominids across the globe were just beginning to develop the first permanent residences, which would eventually be called cities. The sub Saharan hominids had not yet begun to work on the pyramids.
The eastward heading Asian hominids, which were the first residents of Foggy Bottom, did not build cities or pyramids. But their populations would grow and, as their neo cortexes developed, they felt compelled to provide names for distinguishable parts of their population. They developed names like Iroquois, Algonquin, Susquehanock and the like. The Algonquin named the Potomac River Valley. The used the word Patamoke which meant trading place. For the Algonquin, going to Foggy Bottom was just like going to the mall.
Life did not change much, from one generation to the next, for the eastward heading Asian hominids. Little did they know that the European hominids were getting a leg up on them. While the eastward heading Asian hominids were comfortable living within nature, the European hominids were learning how to control nature. They developed science and technology. They did not have to spend fifty thousand years migrating across Asia, then a land bridge, then across the North American continent. They built ships out of wood, hopped in the water and scooted across the ocean in a few short months.
When they arrived in North America they thought they had discovered new territory. They had no idea that the Asian hominids had snuck around the back way and gotten there ten thousand years earlier. When the European hominids stepped off of the boat and saw the Asian hominids, they did not say "well you really put one over on us, sneaking around the back way and getting here first." All they could say was, "Shazam!"
But nature has its ways and just like the Asian hominids exterminated the large hairy mammals, the European hominids began to exterminate the eastward heading Asian hominids.
If you asked the European hominids if they felt even the slightest twinge of guilt over exterminating the eastward heading Asian hominids, they would probably just shrug and said, "hey, dont blame us. They fell behind the evolutionary curve."
And this was largely true. While the eastward heading Asian hominids had learned merely to survive, the European hominids had developed science and technology. They had armor to protect their soft skin and guns that would allow them to lob things at the eastward heading Asian hominids from far enough away that the eastward heading Asian hominids could not throw anything back.
But the secret weapon of the European hominids was biological warfare. Over millennia of domesticating animals they had developed immunity to a vast array of diseases that are passed from animals to humans. The eastward heading Asian hominids did not have this immunity. So the European hominids could save their gunpowder. Measles would do the dirty work for them.
So, about four hundred years ago, European hominids began working their way to the Potomac River Valley on a quest to conquer the continent. This was less than a second before midnight on the one-year map of the universe. It was such a small amount of time that it could not possibly matter to anyone except the European hominids who settled Foggy Bottom. To them, this paltry fraction of a second would be everything.