Theres some debate as to when tarot cards first appeared, but we have records of divination cards as early as the start of the 15th century with Charles VI and other French nobles having decks. I've seen claims and speculation that the original idea came from older societies like Egypt or from gypsies, but there's not much as far as historical proof of it. In general tarot evolved like all other forms of divination, with divination methods pulling from one another and building on each other.

The early decks we do still have cards from, like those of Charles VI, are also notably different from the majority of decks sold today, which mostly follow the designs of Rider Waite or Alister Crowely, both of which date back to the late 19th/early 20th century. There are different styles of modern cards, such as oracle decks, and while most people would still view these as tarot cards, just a less common style than the ones by Waite and Crowley, people involved in divination would tend to view them as distinct entities. So depending on how strict your definition of tarot is, there's a pretty broad range of answers for your first few questions.

For their use, divination is the main thing they are used for, but there are more traditional card games you can play with them, such as the Italian Tarocchini, and minor arcana cards could substitute a normal deck of playing cards with a small modification (the minor arcana is 4 suits of 14 cards each, 4 of which are "face cards", so removing one face card per suit would equal a standard deck of cards).

For your question on what divination means, there's no right answer with tarot; if you showed 50 different people the same spread of cards, you would be given 50 different meanings. Some people feel its how the universe and life can tell us things, and for some it's a way to provoke thought. Each of the 78 cards has specific meanings given to it, but since there's multiple things a card could mean, it allows for interpretation based on the other cards in the spread, the reader's own thoughts on the subject, and how they feel about tarot in general. The artwork on the card is usually factored into the meaning, so while The Hanged Man generally signifies sacrifice or loss, the artists own direction could add to the meaning; often a deck of cards has a small booklet that explains the meaning behind the artwork, to better help the reader. I'd argue tarot has always been considered therapeutic to some, but I'm not sure what exists as far as concrete historical examples.

For your last question on if non-europeans had similar things, while the broad answer is yes, 'non-european' is a lot of different cultures with wildly different histories. You mention protection cards, and my immediate thought was native American dreamcatchers, but in general people had a lot of forms of spiritual protection and divination. Cards are more modern in the scope of human history, but the idea of pictures having meaning, for either protection or divination, is pretty common. Plenty of cultures have used things like runestones or bonecasting for divination, and tattoos, idols, and traditions like the passover can have themes of protection in their roots. I personally know more about astrology, numerology, and tarot than anything else I just mentioned, but for what you described in your last question all of those have parallels.

For references, I sadly don't have a list since much of this is from casual learning. That said I am currently reading through "The Black Arts" by Richard Cavendish, which has a section dedicated to tarot and references to divination and spiritual traditions throughout the whole book. It also has a thorough bibliography, if you wanted to deep-dive on any topic.