http://www.tobaccofacts.org/tob_truth/timeline1492.h...

Before 1492 — Aboriginal peoples throughout the Americas cultivate tobacco for medicinal and ceremonial purposes.

1492 — Christopher Columbus arrives in the Americas. He returns to Europe with the first tobacco leaves and seeds ever seen on the continent. A crew member, Rodrigo de Jerez, is seen smoking and imprisoned for it by the Inquisition, which believes he has been possessed by the devil.

1535 — Jacques Cartier arrives at the Island of Montreal and is offered tobacco by the aboriginal people he meets. They ''fill their bodies with smoke until it comes out of their mouth and nostrils as from a chimney,'' he reports in his diary. ''We tried to imitate them, but the smoke burnt our mouths as if it had been pepper.''

1556 — Tobacco is introduced in France and popularized by, among others, Jean Nicot (the plant is dubbed Nicotiana in his honour, and 19th-century scientists would borrow his name to label the chemical known as nicotine). By 1565, tobacco has spread throughout Europe. When fashionable Sir Walter Raleigh begins to smoke it, tobacco really takes off in England.

http://www.tobaccofacts.org/tob_truth/timeline1900.h...
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1881 — The first practical cigarette-making machine is patented by James Bonsack in the U.S. It can produce 120,000 cigarettes a day; each machine does the work of 48 people. Production costs plummet, and — with the invention of the safety match a few decades later — cigarette smoking begins its explosive growth.