Introduction

The origin of tobacco was first discovered by native American Indians, then in 1492 Christopher Columbus visited a tribe, they offered if to him as a gift, soon after he returned to Europe, the plant was being grown all over Europe, people in Europe believed that, tobacco has healing properties.
During the 1600's tobacco was "as good as gold", in the 1760 the first cigars was invented, years after scientists begin to discover the chemicals in tobacco, and how it damages the human body.
Later on in the later 1800's people started chewing tobacco, it was actually very popular during the time, it wasn't until the 1900's that cigarette became popular to men.Then in the 50's more and more evidence of smoking effecting health,but the tobacco industry denied these hazards, a decade later ads of smoking were taking off Great Britain t.v.

The above is just a short summary of tobacco, how it came to be, in my link there are more details of the how tobacco took part in history.