Short answers, pulled from the story.
Archaeologists uncovered evidence of Gossypium barbadense in the Nanchoc District of Peru dating to the 7th-6th millennia BC. This discovery marks one of the earliest known uses of cotton in human history.
Researchers found a string of eight copper beads containing mineralized cotton thread at the Neolithic site of Mehrgarh in Balochistan, Pakistan. This artifact dates to the 6th millennium BC and represents the earliest known use of cotton in the Old World.
American Eli Whitney invented the modern cotton gin in 1793 which reduced processing time from over 600 hours per bale to just a dozen or so. Before this invention cotton fibers had to be pulled from seeds tediously by hand.
Four least-developed African countries known as Cotton-4 Benin Burkina Faso Chad and Mali led negotiations to reduce US cotton subsidies. Brazil requested consultations with the US regarding prohibited subsidies on the 27th of September 2002.
Globally cotton requires 8,000 to 10,000 liters of water for one kilogram of fiber production. In dry areas like parts of India this requirement may reach 22,500 liters per kilogram.