I want you to go back in time with me. Not far. Not long. A week. Just a week. A week ago today. Perusing that day's newspapers, Wednesday, August 24.

There's no mention of New Orleans (search). The Big Easy was still livin' easy. Mississippi and Alabama were fine. Oil refineries were open. And oil prices were about five bucks a barrel lower than they are now.

One paper mentioned this "Katrina" storm — but she was just that — a storm off the Florida cost. A lot of rain, the guess. Not much else, the hunch. Even Floridians ignored it. No one in the Gulf even mentioned it.

Just a week ago.

It got me thinking how so many lives were uprooted by something no one fathomed. No one saw coming. History is like that — defined not by events we see, but those we do not.

The storm that no one thought would become a hurricane. The drenching that no one expected would lead to an evacuation. Seven days ago, the levies were fine. And so were we.

Funny thing, time. How one moment the space shuttle's the be-all and end-all, then in an instant, it isn't. How a worldwide war on terror is ignited by passenger plane uses no one envisioned.

Such is history. Such is life. Such is us. Prompting me to wonder about the headlines I read this day. And how dated they will seem in only days.

Watch Neil Cavuto weekdays at 4 p.m. ET on "Your World with Cavuto" and send your comments to cavuto@foxnews.com