What historical evnent brought words tomatoes potatoes and tobacco to English laanguage?

Answer 1

The word potato comes from the Spanish patata, from the Carib, or Taino, batata. The historical event bringing the potato, with its name, to Europe and thence into the English language, was the arrival of the Spanish in the Americas.

The word tomato comes from the Nahua word, tomatl. There's debate over which explorer brought the tomato from South America to Europe, but the theories range from Columbus, in 1493, to Cortez, in 1521. The historical event here was, again, the arrival of the Spanish in the Americas.

Tobacco comes to English from the Spanish tabaco and Italian tabacco, from Carib or Taino, though an Arabic word, tabbaq, was used long before tobacco was introduced to Europe, to describe various medicinal herbs.

While the initial discovery of tobacco in the Americas by Europeans resulted from the Spanish conquest, it was early settlers who introduced the practice of smoking tobacco to Europe. A Frenchman named Andre Thevet imported tobacco seed to France, where cultivation began in 1556. Tobacco, in French, is tabac.