6,000 BC
Native Americans first start cultivating the tobacco plant.
Circa 1 BC
Indigenous American tribes start smoking tobacco in religious ceremonies and for medicinal purposes.
1492
Christopher Columbus first encounters dried tobacco leaves. They were given to him as a gift by the American Indians.
1492
Tobacco plant and smoking introduced to Europeans.
1531
Europeans start cultivation of the tobacco plant in Central America.
1558
First attempt at tobacco cultivation in Europe fail.
1571
European doctors start publishing works on healthy properties of the tobacco plant, claiming it can cure a myriad of diseases, from toothache to lockjaw and cancer.
1600
Tobacco used as cash-crop – a monetary standard that lasts twice as long as the gold standard.
1602
King James I condemns tobacco in his treatise A Counterblast to Tobacco.
1614
Tobacco shops open across Britain, selling the Virginia blend tobacco.
1624
Popes ban use of tobacco in holy places, considering sneezing (snuff) too close to sexual pleasures.
1633
Turkey introduces a death penalty for smoking but it doesn’t stay in effect for long and is lifted in 1647.
1650
Tobacco arrives in Africa – European settlers grow it and use it as a currency.
1700
African slaves are first forced to work on tobacco plantations, years before they become a workforce in the cotton fields.