On this day in 1998, CEOs from top U.S. tobacco companies appeared before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Commerce Committee. At the time, the tobacco industry was desperately seeking to shore up its reputation. Later in 1998, the country’s four largest tobacco companies entered an agreement with 52 state and territory attorneys general. But the public generally remained uncertain that these findings were definitive, thanks in part to plotting by the tobacco industry. This organization, known at first as the Tobacco Industry Research Committee and later the Council for Tobacco Research, worked tirelessly to discredit evidence that their products hurt people, deflect bad press, and market new products that they claimed were safer.