The giant dinosaurs that roamed the Earth lived so far back in time that no man ever saw them. They had been extinct for more than 60 million years before man inhabited the Earth. But this vast amount of time since the dinosaurs lived is only about 1 per cent of the 5,000 million years and more covered by the history of our planet. And even the matter of which our Earth is made probably came from stars evolving 10,000 million years ago. Our Planet Earth starts, as any such book must, with the Universe, its galaxies and its stars, with matter itself being formed in turbulent, ever-changing space. In concise non-technical language, the major events leading to the evolution of the Earth and the subsequent development of life on our planet are described. Beautiful full-colour illustrations were painted especially for this book and are based both on known events in Earth’s history, such ag the Carboniferous period of fern-filled swamps, and on probable events indicated by modern research.