Q 01/05

The word "cigarette" entered English from which language?

A) French

B) Turkish

C) Spanish

D) Italian

Answer · why

A) French

French speakers coined cigarette, a diminutive of cigare meaning 'little cigar', as Spain's paper-rolled smokes spread north, and English borrowed the...

Q 02/05

British soldiers picked up the cigarette habit from Ottoman comrades 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 Crimean War sent British troops home rolling tobacco in paper as their Turkish allies did, and veteran Robert Gloag opened Britain's first cigaret...

Q 03/05

Which civilisation carved a cigar-smoking god on a temple doorway at Palenque more than a thousand years ago?

A) The Aztecs

B) The Inca

C) The Maya

D) The Olmec

Answer · why

C) The Maya

The Maya carved the aged deity scholars call God L puffing a large cigar; conquistadors later took rolled tobacco home to Spain, where paper wrappers ...

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

Coffin nails was in print by the 1880s, some seventy years before the 1950 studies that first drew wide attention to smoking and lung cancer.

Q 05/05

What spurred James Bonsack to build his cigarette-rolling machine around 1880?

A) A prize offer

B) A college bet

C) An Army order

D) A rollers' strike

Answer · why

A) A prize offer

A prize offer from the Richmond firm Allen & Ginter set him to work, yet the firm held back from using his machine and lost out to rival James Buchana...