tobacco history, tobacco discovery, early tobacco use till now.

Native Americans smoked tobacco before Europeans arrived in America

Native Americans smoked tobacco before Europeans arrived in America, and early European settlers in America adopted the habit and brought it back to Europe with them, where it became hugely popular.

Tobacco smoking, using both pipes and cigars, was common to many Native American cultures of the Americas. It is depicted in the art of the Classic-era Maya civilization about 1,500 years ago. The Mayas smoked tobacco and also mixed with lime and chewed it in a snuff-like substance. Among the Mayas tobacco was used as an all-purpose medicine, and was widely belived to have magical powers, being used in divinations and talismans. It was also burned a sacrifice to the gods; a tobacco gourd was worn as a badge by midwives.

With the arrival of the Europeans in the New World in the late 15th century, tobacco smoking was brought to Europe, and from there spread to the rest of the world.

Since the beginnings of colonial America, long before the creation of the United States, tobacco, almost entirely on its own, fueled the colonization of New England. The notion that "America was built on tobacco" is quite accurate; and the initial colonial expansion, fueled by the desire to increase tobacco production, caused the first colonial conflicts with Native Americans, and also soon led to the use of African slaves for cheap labor.

Until 1883, tobacco excise tax accounted for one third of internal revenue collected by the United States government.

The cigarette was less common than the cigar or the smoking pipe until the early 20th century, when cheap mechanically made cigarettes became common. Tobacco companies succeeded in having their product included in military rations during World War I, where under the stress of warfare many soldiers took up smoking, becoming habitual smokers. After the war, during the Roaring Twenties, cigarette smoking was portrayed in advertising as part of a glamorous carefree lifestyle. This image continued to be prevalent to some degree until the 1950s and 1960s, when the medical community and government (particularly in the United States) began a campaign to reduce the degree to which smoking damaged public health. In recent years tobbaco smoking in many regions of the world has dramatically dropped.