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50 free Cigarette trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Cigarettes have shaped wars, advertising, law and language for two centuries, which makes them a surprisingly rich trivia topic. This cigarette trivia quiz covers the history (Maya smoking tubes, Crimean War soldiers rolling tobacco in newspaper, James Bonsack's rolling machine, cigarettes in military rations), the brands (Marlboro's start as a women's cigarette, Camel's circus mascot, Lucky Strike's toasting slogan, Kent's asbestos filter, Winston sponsoring The Flintstones), and the backlash: the 1964 Surgeon General's report, the TV advertising ban, Joe Camel, the 1998 Master Settlement, Ireland's workplace ban, Bhutan's total prohibition and Australia's plain packaging. These are smoking trivia questions about history and culture, not a how-to; the answers make clear how the industry marketed a product that kills, and how governments eventually fought back. It works well for a pub quiz round, a public-health class, or anyone who likes 20th-century business and advertising history. Every answer was checked against encyclopedia entries on the brands, the laws and the people involved, and each question links to its source.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word "cigarette" reached English in the 1840s from which language?
French
France's state tobacco monopoly began manufacturing them in 1845; the Spanish had earlier called paper-wrapped tobacco a papelate.
Q 02British soldiers picked up cigarettes from Ottoman comrades and Russian enemies during which war?
The Crimean War
The Turks and Russians were rolling tobacco in strips of old newspaper for lack of proper cigar leaf.
Q 03Which civilisations were smoking tobacco through reeds and tubes in Mesoamerica around the 9th century?
The Maya and, later, the Aztecs
Their pottery and temple carvings frequently show priests and gods smoking.
Q 04By what grim nickname were cigarettes already known in the late 19th century?
Coffin nails
The nickname came decades before the link to lung cancer was scientifically established.
Q 05James Bonsack's 1880s machine raised daily cigarette output from about 40,000 to roughly how many?
4 million
James Buchanan Duke installed two of them, spent heavily on advertising, and was America's biggest cigarette maker by 1889.
Q 06Which trust did James Buchanan Duke found in 1890, controlling over 90% of the US cigarette market?
American Tobacco
He also gave his name and money to Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
Q 07In which year did the US remove cigarettes from military rations?
1975
Cigarettes were rationed to soldiers in both world wars and packed into C-rations in Vietnam.
Q 08In 2004, which country became the first to completely outlaw the growing, production and sale of tobacco?
Bhutan
Enforcement tightened with the Tobacco Control Act of 2010.
Q 09Marlboro was launched in 1924 and initially marketed to whom?
Women
The 1930s slogan was "Mild As May"; the cowboy did not arrive until 1954.
Q 10The Marlboro name was taken from the London address of a factory on which thoroughfare?
Great Marlborough Street
Philip Morris's brother and widow opened it after his death in 1873.
Q 11In which year did Marlboro become the best-selling tobacco brand in the world?
1972
Within a year of the cowboy campaign starting in 1954 it had jumped from a minor brand to fourth in America.
Q 12Which advertising executive conceived the Marlboro Man in 1954?
Leo Burnett
Early models included a Navy lieutenant played by Burnett's own art supervisor before the cowboy took over.
Q 13What nickname did Marlboro Reds earn after several Marlboro Man models died of smoking?
Cowboy killers
Wayne McLaren, David McLean, Dick Hammer, Eric Lawson and Tobin Jackson all died of smoking-related illness.
Q 21In what year did RJR voluntarily retire the Joe Camel campaign?
1997
The Federal Trade Commission had filed a formal complaint for unfair practices in exposing children to smoking.
Q 22From 1952 to 1956, Kent's heavily advertised Micronite filter contained what?
Blue asbestos
Lorillard promised the greatest health protection in history, then quietly switched to cellulose acetate.
Q 23Which brand was the first to introduce filter tips, in 1936?
Viceroy
Hungarian inventor Boris Aivaz had patented a crepe-paper filter back in 1925.
Which cigarette brand sponsored The Flintstones from 1960 to 1962, with Fred lighting up for Wilma?
Q 14In which year did the Marlboro Man campaign end in the United States?
1999
It had run for 45 years, the longest-lived cigarette campaign in American advertising.
Q 15Which slogan did Lucky Strike debut in 1917 to promote its manufacturing method?
It's Toasted
Camel hit back by claiming its cigarettes were never parched or toasted.
Q 16In 1934 PR pioneer Edward Bernays tried to make which colour fashionable to sell Lucky Strikes?
Green
The pack's green and red clashed with women's clothes, so he staged a Green Ball at the Waldorf Astoria.
Q 17R. J. Reynolds introduced Camel cigarettes in which year?
1913
Reynolds is credited with innovating the packaged cigarette; his home town of Winston-Salem is nicknamed Camel City.
Q 18The camel on the original Camel pack was photographed at which travelling show?
Barnum & Bailey Circus
A promotional camel named Old Joe was later driven through towns handing out free cigarettes.
Q 19Which brand's decades-long slogan claimed a smoker would walk a mile for one?
Camel
The classic unfiltered soft-pack version is still known as Camel Straights.
Q 20A 1991 JAMA study found six-year-olds recognised the Joe Camel cartoon about as readily as which logo?
The Disney Channel's
Over 90% of the children matched Joe Camel to cigarettes; RJR dropped him in 1997 under legal pressure.
Winston
Fred and Barney appeared in the commercials singing the jingle.
Q 25The last cigarette commercial on US television, on January 1, 1971, was for which brand?
Virginia Slims
The Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act, signed by Nixon in 1970, banned cigarette ads from radio and TV.
Q 26Which US president signed the 1970 act that banned cigarette advertising on radio and television?
Richard Nixon
It also toughened the pack warning to say the Surgeon General had determined smoking is dangerous to your health.
Q 27Which US Surgeon General issued the landmark 1964 report linking smoking to disease?
Luther Terry
The report set off the wave of legislation that put warnings on packs and ads off the airwaves.
Q 28Who was the first to develop a menthol cigarette, in 1924?
Lloyd "Spud" Hughes
His Spud brand was the fifth most popular in America by 1932, and the only menthol until Kool arrived in 1933.
Q 29Which company created the Kool menthol brand in 1933?
Brown & Williamson
For over twenty years it was the only significant menthol brand, yet never got much above 2% market share.
Q 30The 1998 Master Settlement Agreement committed US tobacco firms to pay states at least how much?
$206 billion
In return the states dropped their Medicaid lawsuits and the companies accepted limits on marketing to youth.