Not knowing what to expect he sent two of his fellow-explorers, Rodriguo de Jerez and Luis de Torres, to scout the interior. In his log, Columbus reported that the two Spanish conquistadores met a large number of men and women, walking round "with a little lighted brand made from a kind of plant whose aroma it was their custom to inhale."

That same day, Rodriguo de Jerez took his first hesitant puff of the New World's early version of the cigar, its ring size estimated to be as big as a man's arm, and became the first European smoker in history.

When Columbus and his crew returned home with some tobacco leaves, Rodrigo, who'd taken to smoking a cigar every day, made the mistake of lighting up the unusual plant in public. He was promptly thrown into prison for three years by the Spanish Inquisition - the world's first victim of the anti-smokers.

The name of the person who introduced tobacco into Spain is not known for sure, but it is generally believed that Columbus in 1515 and Cortes in 1518 sent seeds to Court which were then introduced and cultivated in Portugal.

The first commercially produced cigarettes were manufactured in France in 1843 by the State-run Manufacture Francaise des Tabacs. The first consignment of 20,000 cigarettes were sold at a charity bazaar organized by Queen Marie-Amelie in Paris that year.

The French Emperor, Napoleon III (1808-1873) helped to popularize the cigarette in France, his own consumption of them running to what was then thought the remarkable number of 50 a day. He so entirely lacked his uncle's disregard for the lives of others that he could only bear to watch his battles by chain smoking throughout.

The world’s first factory to produce cigarettes by mass-production methods was established in Havana, Cuba, by Don Luis Susini, who abandoned hand-rolling for steam-driven machines in 1853.

The first branded cigarettes manufactured in Britain were Sweet Threes, launched around 1859 by Robert Peacock Gloag, the proprietor of a small factory in Deptford Lane, south London. Gloag had been paymaster to the Turkish forces during the Crimean War (1853-1856), which was largely responsible for the popularity of the cigarette in England.

The first brand of cigarettes to be sold in cardboard packets of the modern ‘push up’ (since replaced by the ‘flip over top’) kind was Wills’ Three Castles, in 1892. Formerly, cigarette packets were generally made of paper and the contents easily crushed. In May 1931, Craven A was the first brand of cigarettes to be sold in cellophane-wrapped packets.

In 1865, the Austrian Regie introduced the ‘double cigarette’. It was about three times as long as today’s more familiar version, had a mouthpiece at either end and was cut into two before it was lit up. It proved immensely popular and the following year 16 million were sold in Austria, before they made way for the single cigarette of finer quality. That same year, Prosper Merimee’s Carmen became the first woman in fiction to smoke cigarettes – she also sold them.

 The point is that to this powder was later named as Nicotine after Nicot by Reimann y Posselt in 1829

Recently, historians changed their mind and decided that in fact it was the revolutionary monk, Andre Thevet of Angouleme, who started bringing tobacco back from Brazil in 1556. Nicot has had the last laugh (or not, depending on your point of view), as his name lives on as nicotine, referred to in most dictionaries as "the addictive substance contained in tobacco."

As all the great things tobacco has been widely and agressively prosecuted in history.

The first accusation came from France (XVI c.) It was the first outcry of prosecution. All the royal houses of those days hurried to decree the more rigorous coercive measures, threatening to the followers the most horrible punishments:

Queen Elisabeta commanded to confiscate pipes and snuff boxes which  were  then of high  intrinsic value.

The great Duke of Moscovia threatened all  smokers with  CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

The Urban Pope VIII excomulgated all the ones who smoked tobacco in church.

Amurat IV of Persia, ordered the NOSE of all the ones who smelled tobacco to be cut.

And in London  DECAPITATION prevailed among pipe smokers.

Jacob I of England wrote his "Misocapnos" (Hatred to smoke) to which the Jesuits published "Anti-Misocapnos" in which the  defense was much more smart and logical that the accusation of the British king..

Nevertheless, nothing had the awaited desired effect. Spirited, seasoned to the fight, smokers continued smoking more  than ever, despising the threats, mocking the punishments, and the persecution helped to extend the use that was wanted to extirpate.

1642. Pope Urban VIII issued a Papal Bull against smoking in the churches of Seville (so what about all the others, then?). Anti-smoking increased throughout Europe and most writers were now hostile to it, which proves there’s nothing new in this world.

By the mid-1990s after the gradual introduction of anti-smoking measures such as the mushrooming of ‘no smoking’ signs in cinemas, theatres, shops and other public meeting places – mainly to avoid paying the increased insurance premiums levied against smokers, cigarettes and pipes were in decline.