Q 01/05

The word "cigarette" reached English in the 1840s from which language?

A) French

B) Turkish

C) Spanish

D) Italian

Answer · why

A) French

France's state tobacco monopoly began manufacturing them in 1845; the Spanish had earlier called paper-wrapped tobacco a papelate.

Q 02/05

British soldiers picked up cigarettes from Ottoman comrades and Russian enemies during which war?

A) The Boer War

B) The Napoleonic Wars

C) The Crimean War

D) The Seven Years' War

Answer · why

C) The Crimean War

The Turks and Russians were rolling tobacco in strips of old newspaper for lack of proper cigar leaf.

Q 03/05

Which civilisations were smoking tobacco through reeds and tubes in Mesoamerica around the 9th century?

A) The Olmec and the Toltec

B) The Inca and the Moche

C) The Maya and, later, the Aztecs

D) The Zapotec and the Mixtec

Answer · why

C) The Maya and, later, the Aztecs

Their pottery and temple carvings frequently show priests and gods smoking.

Q 04/05

By what grim nickname were cigarettes already known in the late 19th century?

A) Coffin nails

B) Cancer sticks

C) Lung darts

D) Death sticks

Answer · why

A) Coffin nails

The nickname came decades before the link to lung cancer was scientifically established.

Q 05/05

James Bonsack's 1880s machine raised daily cigarette output from about 40,000 to roughly how many?

A) 400,000

B) 4 million

C) 100,000

D) 1.5 million

Answer · why

B) 4 million

James Buchanan Duke installed two of them, spent heavily on advertising, and was America's biggest cigarette maker by 1889.