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Congress passes the 18th Amendment, which would restrict the manufacture and sale of alcohol. States are given seven years to ratify the measure. -
18th Amendment is ratified when Nebraska becomes 36th state to bar the “manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes”; 46 of 48 states eventually support prohibition, with Connecticut and Rhode Island as the only holdouts. (Alaska and Hawaii were not yet states. -
Congress passes the 19th Amendment to give women the right to vote; ratified by the states on Aug. 18, 1920. Women were instrumental in the temperance movement. -
Wartime Prohibition Act takes effect, restricting the sale of beverages containing more than 2.75% alcohol. -
Commonly referred to at the time as June “Thirsty-First” — the first day after wartime prohibition started. -
Congress overrides President Woodrow Wilson’s veto of the National Prohibition Act, commonly called the Volstead Act, which makes it illegal to manufacture beverages with more than a half-percent of alcohol and provides enforcement of the 18th Amendment. It is named for Andrew Volstead, a Minnesota Republican who served as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and introduced the bill. -
The United States goes dry, shutting down the country’s fifth-largest industry. -
October 1929: The Wall Street crash begins, ushering in the Great Depression. -
Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected president after campaigning, among other things, to end Prohibition. -
21st Amendment repealing Prohibition is ratified.