Word: nicotiana
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...delicate, wide-leafed tobacco plant (Nicotiana tabacum) became known as "the divine herb" and "the princess of plants." But the foes of tobacco spied the devil's hoofs beneath the princess' skirt. King James I of Great Britain called tobacco "the lively image and pattern of hell," slapped on a big import tax. Louis XIII of France and Czar Michael I decreed penalties for smoking, ranging from death to castration, and Pope Urban VIII threatened excommunication for anyone found smoking in church or on church premises. A signer of the Declaration of Independence, Dr. Benjamin Rush, attacked tobacco on grounds...