Other creatures employ tools, apes, crows, even dogs, etc!.... other creatures are documented as being "self aware", <-good grief the last being the list is infinite!!!! And who says animals don't have their own "medicine"??? Non ungulates also eat grass for instance, to glean probiotics and aid in digestion.... nope.... this post is too limited in scope and oh so typically human in arrogance... IMO

A living thing must be sentient in order to suffer. Many animals can suffer, and therefore must be sentient. Self-awareness, as stated in earlier replies, can be demonstrated using the mirror test - and a large number of animals including chimps, bonobos, orangutans, orcas, false killer whales, bottle-nose dolphins, magpies and possibly some ants and manta rays pass it (humans; incidentally,rarely pass before reaching an age of 18 months). Tool building could be viewed as an aspect of technology, and a very large number of animals use tools, including crows - which also, based on the ability to identify a problem and then fashion a tool to solve it, seem capable of abstract thought. Various animals create structures purely to attract a mate, which could be viewed as art. Various species seek out and consume certain plants and minerals when they're suffering from certain ailments - [cracked.com]. The only thing left on your list is literature... but individual birds of the same species use identical or near-identical song to convey information to one another; while this might not be oral literature, it's not far off it.

Creating "Art" is displayed by certain birds, like the bower bird, and even fish, as a way to attract females. Many animals self-medicate on specific herbs. Man, by virtue of complex speech and having an opposable thumb, has been able to create tools and pass on ideas precisely, rather than by example.
Only the bible lauds man as being the sole creature to have a so-called "soul". (ie. having sentience), yet another fallacy!

Part of humanity's uniqueness is due to the ability, granted by our intelligence and technology, dominate our environment. There were other "homo" species that offered us some level of competition but they lost in a game of winner takes all.

Literally thousands of species are sentient. Many display self-awareness evidenced by recognising that their image in a mirror is of them without being them. Many use tools. Most of our accomplishments are of degree and not uniquely human. Technologically we are distinct, and that leads to being able to make buildings, pencils and paintbrushes, which accounts for a lot of our 'specialness'. Morality, empathy and intelligence, arguably language, you can find in plenty of other species.
Then there are the other species of hominid that we have outcompeted or driven to extinction. We'll never know what they were capable of.

I think we are finding that consciousness is not rare and only limited to humans. Though, what we humans have done with our consciousness is unique and unfortunately will lead to the destruction of our habitat....we have left behind our connectedness with nature in all forms. (Not all of us, of course, but those of us who have take up the corruption of power.)

Well, I kind of view us as having developed higher intelligence and consciousness as an artifact of a unique set of evolutionary adaptations (bipedalism, opposable thumbs, increasing cranial size as a result of bipedalism + opposable thumbs---> increased cranial size---> the need for extended periods of parental care as a result of bipedalism's effects on the maturity of our neonates, etc.). Many different branches, and they are finding more all the time, of our rather bushy initial hominid family tree were truncated early which may well have evolved into competing primates with similar intelligence and self-awareness. I also believe that our ancestors got off to a rather running start on all of that and probably had something to do with the failure of other related hominids to reach our level of intellect and technology, as well as some of our ancestors being stressed by certain environmental events that gave great advantage to more intelligent and tool-using and inventive individuals. I can see why that has nagged at you. It's something that has nagged at me. It's something that is fertile fodder for filmmakers. I mean, wasn't that a big plot point (if you could say either movie had much of a plot) of 2001:A Space Odyssey and Prometheus? Maybe it's God. Maybe it's Aliens. Or maybe it's just that we got really really lucky and everything else that might have evolved to fill that humanoid niche instead took the gas pipe or was stifled in its evolution towards higher intelligence by our very presence here. I have always liked to think that if not for the comet hitting the Yucatan, it is possible that the smaller more human-sized theropod dinosaurs may well have evolved higher intelligence over the millions of years that followed. They were in many cases bipedal with probable pack hunting behavior and social structure, and they in many cases were developing forelimbs that could have functioned rather well manipulating tools and so forth. Fun to think about what a world without the Dinosaur Apocalypse might have become! Instead, sentient urban Raptors might be shopping around screenplays about a hideous invasion of hairless, scale-less, featherless beings intent on conquering their verdant Earthly home!

Read "From Bacteria to Bach and Back" by Daniel C. Dennett. It helps to explain this. There's also "The Strange Order of Things" by Antonio Damasio, that is along the same lines, generally.