Gentlemen, You May Smoke

"Gentlemen, you may smoke," said King Edward VII shortly after he was crowned king of the United Kingdom in 1901. His mother Queen Victoria did not approve of smoking so during her reign the pleasures of cigar smoking were kept behind closed doors. Edward, the Prince of Wales, was fond of cigars so much that his first order of business as king was to permit smoking anywhere, anytime. His royal edict was so welcomed that a cigar was named after him and it became famously popular not only in England but in the rest of the world as well. And of course, this famous phrase has been updated and amended to “Ladies and gentlemen, you may smoke.”