New constraints on the early expansion history of the universe.

Cosmic microwave background measurements have pushed to higher resolution, lower noise, and more sky coverage. These data enable a unique test of the early Universe's expansion rate and constituents such as effective number of relativistic degrees of freedom and dark energy. Using the most recent data from Planck and WMAP9, we constrain the expansion history in a model-independent manner from today back to redshift z=10(5).