1634: Czar Michael of Russia bans smoking, promising even first-time offenders whippings, floggings, a slit nose, and a one-way trip to Siberia. By 1674, smokers are deemed criminals subject to the death penalty. Two years later, the smoking ban is lifted.

1646: The General Court of Massachusetts Bay prohibits citizens from smoking tobacco except when on a journey and at least five miles away from any town. The next year, the Colony of Connecticut restricts citizens to one smoke a day, “not in company with any other.” Though some statutes remain on the books for decades, enforcement diminishes, and by the early 1700s, New England is a major consumer and producer of tobacco.

1891: Angered by the shah’s generous tobacco concession to England, Iranians protest widely, and the Grand Ayatollah Haji Mirza Hasan Shirazi issues a fatwa banning Shiites from using or trading tobacco. The tensions spark the Tobacco Rebellion—the culmination of a long-standing confrontation between Iran’s shahs and its clergy over foreign influence. The following year, once the country’s business dealings with the Brits are revoked, Iran’s Shiites happily resume smoking.

1895: North Dakota bans the sale of cigarettes. Over the next twenty-six years, fourteen other statehouses, propelled by the national temperance movement, follow suit. Antismoking crusader Lucy Gaston announces her candidacy for president in 1920—the same year Warren G. Harding’s nomination is decided by Republican Party bosses in a “smoke-filled room.” By 1927, all smoke-free legislation—except that banning the sale of cigarettes to minors—is repealed.

1942: Adolf Hitler calls tobacco “the wrath of the Red Man against the White Man, vengeance for having been given hard liquor,” and directs one of the most aggressive antismoking campaigns in history, including heavy taxes and bans on smoking in many public places. The country’s antismoking movement loses most of its momentum after the Nuremberg trials, and by the mid-1950s, domestic consumption exceeds prewar levels.

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