Humans begin farming, setting off the Neolithic Revolution
At least 11 separate regions of the world invented farming on their own, with no contact between them — beginning in the Fertile Crescent around 11,700 years ago and continuing in China, Mesoamerica, the Andes, New Guinea, and the African Sahel over the millennia that followed. Small bands who had spent hundreds of thousands of years following game began planting crops and tending animals instead. It was the quiet groundwork for cities, writing, and nearly every civilization that came after.