Short answers, pulled from the story.
The first animal to be domesticated by humans was the dog, appearing in the archaeological record at least 15,000 years ago. This event occurred long before the invention of agriculture or the taming of livestock. The process took place across Eurasia before the end of the Late Pleistocene era.
Neolithic societies in the Fertile Crescent first cultivated founder crops including cereals like emmer and einkorn wheat, barley, lentils, peas, chickpeas, and flax. This domestication of plants began around 13,000 to 11,000 years ago. A key genetic change in wheat prevented seed heads from shattering, making them easier for humans to harvest.
In mammals, the domestication syndrome includes increased docility, smaller brains, shorter muzzles, floppy ears, and reduced tooth size. Charles Darwin recognized these differences in his 1868 book The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication. These traits make animals easier to handle but less capable of surviving in the wild.
At least three groups of insects have independently domesticated species of fungi, creating complex agricultural systems that predate human farming by millions of years. Ambrosia beetles, leafcutter ants, and fungus-growing termites all manage fungal cultivators to obtain resources. The relationship between fungus-growing termites and their fungal cultivators occurred exactly once between 25 and 40 million years ago.
Rice was first domesticated in China some 9,000 years ago. This event was part of a global mosaic of independent developments that occurred in at least 13 centers of origin across the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Indigenous peoples in the Americas began to cultivate peanuts, squash, maize, potatoes, cotton, and cassava around 10,000 years ago.