But this fabulous hominid was not content to merely adapt to a changing world. He was about to break the rules, in fact to shatter them to smithereens. About 10,000 years ago man began to do something that had never been done. He began to modify rather than adapt to his environment, making the world fit his needs rather than the other way around. Instead of just hunting and gathering man learned to domesticate plants to eat, and animals to eat and do his work for him. He became a farmer and a shepherd.

Thus the seeds of an agricultural revolution were planted in a fertile crescent around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in present day Iraq. This was mankind's real "giant leap," the single most important chapter in the incomparable biography of Homo sapiens. Man was set to graze, plow, hydrate, and populate the entire planet, and one day take another giant step. In 1969 man placed his footprints on the moon. Truly a job well done! All we have to do now is deal with the consequences of all that success.