Short answers, pulled from the story.
The first primate-like mammals emerged from the dinosaur extinction over 65 million years ago. These creatures were small, nocturnal, and lived in the tropical forests of the Paleocene and Eocene epochs.
The divergence of the human lineage from other great apes began approximately 8 to 9 million years ago. This split occurred when hominins parted ways from the Gorillini tribe and later separated from the Pan genus between 4 and 7 million years ago.
The oldest known tools date back 3.3 million years and were likely created by Australopithecus in West Turkana, Kenya. These simple flakes of stone marked the beginning of a technological revolution that eventually led to the development of complex tools.
Homo erectus was the first hominin to leave Africa, spreading throughout Africa, Asia, and Europe between 1.8 million years ago and 108,000 years ago. This migration was closely related to fluctuating periods of climate change and the closing of savannah corridors.
Modern humans evolved in Africa approximately 300,000 years ago and migrated out of the continent some 50,000 to 100,000 years ago. This migration led to the replacement of local populations of Homo erectus, Denisova hominins, and Neanderthals.
The genetic revolution in studies of human evolution started when Vincent Sarich and Allan Wilson published their seminal paper in 1967. Their work used immunological cross-reactions to estimate the divergence time of humans and apes as four to five million years ago.