The Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany was the first public anti-smoking campaign in modern history. Anti-tobacco movements grew in many nations from the beginning of the 20th century, but these had little success except in Germany where the campaign was supported by the government after the Nazis came to power. It was the most powerful anti-smoking movement in the world in the 1930s and early 1940s. The Nazi leadership condemned smoking and several of them openly criticized tobacco consumption. Research on smoking and its effects on health thrived under Nazi rule and was the most important of its type at that time. Hitler's personal distaste for tobacco and the Nazi reproductive policies were among the motivating factors behind their campaign against smoking, and this campaign was associated with both antisemitism and racism. The Nazi anti-tobacco campaign included banning smoking in trams, buses and city trains, promoting health education, limiting cigarette rations in the Wehrmacht, organizing medical lectures for soldiers and raising the tobacco tax. The Nazis also imposed restrictions on tobacco advertising, tobacco rationing for women, smoking in public spaces and regulated restaurants and coffeehouses. The anti-tobacco movement did not have much effect in the early years of the Nazi regime and tobacco use increased between 1933 and 1939, but smoking by military personnel declined from 1939 to 1945.

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_________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1642:

First English Civil War: The Royalist army engaged the much larger Parliamentarian army at the Battle of Turnham Green near Turnham Green, Middlesex. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Turnham_Green)

1954:

Great Britain defeated France at the Parc des Princes in Paris to win the first Rugby League World Cup. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_League_World_Cup)

1970:

The Bhola tropical cyclone hit the densely populated Ganges Delta in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), killing an estimated 500,000 people. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_Bhola_cyclone)

1982:

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Constitution Gardens in Washington, D.C. was dedicated. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_Veterans_Memorial)

1985:

The volcano Nevado del Ruiz erupted, causing a volcanic mudslide that buried Armero, Colombia and killed approximately 23,000 people. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevado_del_Ruiz)

_______________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

craquelure (n) (art) The distinctive pattern of hairline cracks in the surface of an old painting. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/craquelure)

______________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or in the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. --Abigail Adams (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abigail_Adams)