The article I quoted in this post mentions that the mice attracted by stores of grain in the first agricultural settlements led to cat domestication. From an article by William J. Bennett on US history:
As commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, Washington in 1775 firmly ordered his soldiers not to celebrate Pope’s Day. It had been a New England tradition for 150 years to set afire effigies of the pope. These straw men were filled with live cats whose screams were said to be those of the popes in Hell. Washington knew that the Continental Army “swarmed with Roman Catholic soldiers” and he wisely put an end to such bigotry. He not only ended Pope’s Day in the Army, he ended it in America.
WTF? Of course, cats on the other side of the Atlantic were in a somewhat better position, apparently having the right to a trial by morons before execution.