How Life Began

Billions of years before humankind first walked the earth—billions of years before even the dinosaurs existed—our blue planet was teeming with life.

In this feature-length special, HISTORY™ explores how Earth has evolved over time to support a rich and vibrant menagerie of creeping, crawling, walking creatures. Visit our young planet earth during a time when it was being bombarded by massive comets shooting in from the depths of space. Get a rare look into how single-celled organisms divide, mutate, and evolve into other, more complex creatures. And finally, let your imagination run wild as new life is created in new worlds, all by using amazing CGI technology.

Was life triggered by some massive event, or did it float in from some distant galaxy? Is life chemical, spiritual, or a combination of both? How did life evolve from a single-celled organism to a trillion-celled human being? Featuring visually stunning animation and compelling interviews with leading archaeologists, geologists, and physicists, HOW LIFE BEGAN explores some of science’s most provocative questions surrounding the great mystery of life.