The cigarette has many bad names.

People call it "cancer stick" and "coffin nail."

It is linked to tens of millions of deaths in the United States.

The cigarette was not invented in America.

More than 100 countries make them today.

China makes the most.

But U.S. ideas changed the tobacco industry.

American culture loved the cigarette in the 20th century.

For a time, it meant stylish adulthood in movies and media.

It was everywhere.

People smoked in bars, restaurants, airplanes, and hospitals.

K. Michael Cummings studies tobacco history.

He said smoking became a rite of passage for many young people.

By the 1950s, nearly half of U.S. adults smoked, he said.

Cummings is 73.

He remembered making ashtrays for his parents as gifts.

He also gave cartons of cigarettes at Christmas.

Early cigarettes date back thousands of years to the Mayans.

Rolling each one by hand took much time and work.

That changed in the 1880s.

A Virginia inventor named John Bansack built a rolling machine.

It worked 50 times faster.

Tobacco magnate James Buchanan Duke invested in the technology.

He also made better tobacco blends.

He turned cigarettes into a big American industry.

Cigarettes were clearly addictive.

People long suspected that smoking could kill.

In the 1910s, automaker Henry Ford warned against them.

A 1914 brochure from Ford called cigarettes "little white slavers."

It said they were habit-forming.

It said they were bad for health.

It said they were tied to bad morals.

A turning point came in 1964.

A strong U.S. surgeon general report said smoking causes illness and death.

This led to warning labels.

It led to bans on cigarette commercials.

It led to limits on where people could smoke.

Smoking rates later fell to historic lows.