Prohibition begins in the United States
On this day · 16 January 1920
A constitutional ban on America's drinks took effect one year to the day after it was ratified, and the speakeasies were ready.
The 18th Amendment was ratified on January 16, 1919, and by its own terms it switched on exactly one year later. On January 16, 1920, national Prohibition took effect, outlawing the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors across the United States.
The amendment itself was short and said nothing about what counted as “intoxicating.” That job fell to the Volstead Act, passed over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto in October 1919, which set the legal line at any beverage above 0.5 percent alcohol, a threshold strict enough to sweep in ordinary beer and wine.
The ban was meant to sober up the nation. Instead it pushed drinking underground, seeding speakeasies, bootlegging fortunes, and well-organized crime. The experiment lasted nearly 14 years before the 21st Amendment repealed it in December 1933, the only time an amendment has been undone by another.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
