What Happened in the Past?

Humans have always been interested in how the Earth formed and how animals and plants evolved. Numerous legends and myths were created and there were many ideas on this subject. Today we know that the Earth formed about 4.6 billion years ago, this is when the Earth’s solid crust was formed. The plants and animals of the past were very different from the ones living today. Nicolaus Steno, a Danish scientist who investigated the reasons for this difference, discovered that the remains of dead organisms fossilise under special circumstances, making it possible to compare the anatomy of organisms that existed millions of years ago with that of species living today.