A Million Years in a Day: A Curious History of Everyday Life From the Stone Age to the Phone Age

Written by Greg Jenner

Narrated by Matthew Lloyd Davies

Who invented beds? When did we start cleaning our teeth? How old are wine and beer? Which came first: the toilet seat or toilet paper? What was the first clock? Every day, from the moment our alarm clock wakes us in the morning until our head hits our pillow at night, we all take part in rituals that are millennia old.



Structured around one ordinary day, A Million Years in a Day reveals the astonishing origins and development of the daily practices we take for granted. In this gloriously entertaining romp through human history, Greg Jenner explores the gradual and often unexpected evolution of our daily routines. This is not a story of politics, wars, or great events. Instead, Jenner has scoured Roman rubbish bins, Egyptian tombs, and Victorian sewers to bring us the most intriguing, surprising, and sometimes downright silly nuggets from our past.



Drawn from across the world, spanning a million years of humanity, this book is a smorgasbord of historical delights. It is a history of all those things you always wondered—and many you have never considered. It is the story of your life, one million years in the making.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Jun 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781515975151

Greg Jenner

Greg Jenner is a public historian best known as the host of the hit BBC podcasts You're Dead To Me and Homeschool History, his work on BBC's multi-award winning TV series Horrible Histories, and for his books Dead Famous: An Unexpected History of Celebrity, From Bronze Age To Silver Screen and A Million Years In A Day: A Curious History of Everyday Life From The Stone Age To The Phone Age. He is an Honorary Research Associate at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Reviews for A Million Years in a Day

[Michele Haass Coronis · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The premise of the book was good and it was informative however extremely boring. The narration was excellent.

[catseyegreen · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Using the structure of an ordinary modern Saturday the author links ancient history with modern-day life. He careens rapidly back and forth from different eras- from Neolithic customs to Victorian developments to medieval life and yet does not spend more than one or two paragraphs linking them. This makes it a difficult read complicated by the author's "humor" and personal opinions peppered throughout the text. I quite like the structural idea but the author fails to carry it out.

read 8/19/2023

[paul_s-289480 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Trying to cram in too much humour (and rather lacklustre puns) in an otherwise by the numbers sweep through the ages in anecdotes dotted with pop-culture references. Every funny sounding word is "the best ever name for a rock band".

[zhoud2005 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A book about important things, eating, drinking, sleeping, clothing, time-keeping, pooping..

[knightlight777 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An entertaining book with a quirky twist that looks at everyday routines in the average persons life. The topics start out on a cycle from rising in the morning to retiring in the evening, and everything in between. The topics include, waking, the toilet, breakfast, bathing, walking the dog, communicating, apparel, dining, drinking, teeth, back to bed, and timekeeping. That is pretty much it.

There is a lot to explore here and many intriguing facts surface about how habits and technology evolved over the millennia. At times the author gets a bit cute with his commentary and witticisms but on balance it is in good humor. Concluding, it left me wondering from where we began with all this, where will we be with same in the thousands of years to come. Or will some of these things exist at all.

[lauriebrown54 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What were toilets like during the time of Imperial Rome? What kind of underwear was worn during the Tudor era? How did people keep in touch before the telephone was invented- before the post office, even? When did the fork develop, or the mattress? What about dentistry? This book can tell you all these things and more, in a witty, casual, conversational way. The author is both historical consultant and comedy writer, and he’s combined both skills well in this book.

This book does not tell us about kings or generals. It’s not about invasions or wars. It’s about daily life, the things that affected every single person, no matter how rich or poor. Like the toddler’s book says, everybody poops. Everybody also wears some kind of clothing and eats. This is the history of both royalty and the common person. And it’s a really fun book. They should give this book to pre-teens to get them sucked into how interesting history is.