The splendor of life, death and rebirth in the Old Kingdom of unified Egypt. Life on the banks of the Nile and in the shadow of the pyramids, amid the wealth and power of the early dynasties. Imhotep, the first great genius of history, who started as a common man but became a vizier, a god, and then a monster.

Cities. Writing. The wheel. The plow. Literature and epic poetry. Irrigation systems. The sailboat. Beer. The concept of time. These are all inventions of the first great civilization, Mesopotamia, and all of them were to be found in the first city of history, Uruk. Join Lance, L.B. and producer William Gold for a discussion of how the story of history began.

Was the prehistoric human a rough beast crouching in the forest primeval, capable only of subsistence and superstition? Or were early homo sapiens brave, adventurous, and rich in culture? What distinguishes the human species?

The primordial Earth. The age of planetesimal bombardment. The origins and nature of life. Cosmic rays and plate tectonics, watery asteroids and organic chemicals. The Fermi Paradox, the Drake Equation, and the mystery of our apparently unique existence as living things in the universe. Join L.B. and Lance as they grapple with the seemingly incomprehensible.

In the second episode, Lance and L.B. follow a single quark through its 9 billion year journey into the expanding universe.

And away we go, with the beginning of everything.