Brief History of Nearly Everything: Fascinating encapsulation of natural history, but certainly not ‘Everything’ or even nearly. Still, a fun book. From it I learned that Yellowstone blows about every 600,000 years, and that the last time it blew was … 630,000 years ago. If it blew roughly in tune with the past, it would cover the entire United States in ash feet deep. Wouldn’t that just put our little world in jarring perspective?