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The First Banning
Maine was the first state to prohibit the manufacture and sale of liquor in 1851, after Neal Dow, the mayor of Portland, gathered thousands of signatures on a petition demanding the state legislature enact a law. The law was later repealed in 1856. -
Anti-Saloon League
Founded by Howard Hyde Russell in Oberlin, Ohio. They believed that alcohol was a drug that was being pushed on consumers. That once you eliminated the pusher that people would stop drinking because temperance was the natural state of humans. -
Washington D.C. Mass March
Members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League march on Washington D.C. to demand a Prohibition Amendment to the United States Constitution. -
The 18th Amendment
The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declared that the production, transport, and sale of alcohol was illegal. -
The 18th Amendment
The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declared that the production, transport, and sale of all alcohol was illegal. -
The Volstead Act
The Volstead Act prohibited intoxicating beverages, and declared the definition of an alcoholic beverage as any beverage that contains more than one-half of one percent of alcohol. It also regulated companies that had to use alcohol in their industry. -
The First Bootlegger
Lawyer George Remus moves to Cincinnati to set up a drug company to gain legal access to bonded liquor. And he built an enormous bootlegging operation. And cleverly, he started a drug company, a wholesaler to drug stores. And then he would send his trucks out, his own men would hijack those trucks and put it into the illegal liquor trade." -
The Creation of Rum Running
William McCoy, a Florida skipper, pioneered the “rum-running” trade by sailing a schooner loaded with 1500 cases of liquor from Nassau in the British colony of the Bahamas to Savannah and pocketing $15,000 in profits from just one trip. -
Response to the Bootleggers & Moonshiners
Frank Mather signs on with treasury department to scour Nelson County, Kentucky for moonshiners, arresting them and dumping their whiskey into local streams. -
Purple Gang Trial
The Purple Gang of Detroit, Michigan, goes to trial for bootlegging and highjacking. They were the first gang to ever go to trial. -
Gang Violence
At this time gang violence is on the rise in nearly every city in the United States. All of them vying for the work in their territories. -
The Great Depression Begins
In a period of ten weeks, stocks on the New York Stock Exchange lost 50 percent of their value. As stocks continued to fall during the early 1930s, businesses failed, and unemployment rose dramatically. -
Wall Street Crashes
Black Thursday prompts the start of the stock market crash, which plunged the country and eventually the rest of the world into the depression. Immediately, the price of stocks dropped by 11%, but with Wall Street bankers buying the stocks, only 2% was lost. -
The Dust Bowls Begin
A drought hits 23 states across the US, affecting those from the mid-Atlantic region to the Mississippi River. This was the beginning of the Dust Bowls, which became characteristic of the 1930s farmers’ struggle. As well as a struggling economy, the land was unable to be used to grow crops, pushing many farmers out of their land. -
Riots
Food riots erupt as people struggle for food. One in Minneapolis included a few hundred people smashing the windows of a grocery market, taking bacon, ham and canned goods with them as they ran away. A store owner pulled out a gun to stop the robbers, but ended up having his arm broken as he jumped up to defend. 100 policemen managed to bring the riots under control and 7 people were arrested as a result. -
Crashing Banks
The fourth largest bank in the United States, the Bank of the United States, fails, causing the biggest failure in a bank at the time. President Hoover then brought the top income tax rate up to 25% as he was concerned about budget deficits. When the bank collapsed, it had more than $200 million in deposits, which made it the largest bank failure in the history of the United States and was one of the most hard-hitting events during the Great Depression. -
President Roosevelt
With President Hoover pushing tax rates up, and making the depression worse the people had enough of him. So they elected Franklin D. Roosevelt, who gave his “New Deal” speech to the public to reveal his plans for economic recovery. -
More Alcohol
Bringing the Prohibition era to an end, the Beer-Wine Revenue Act raises revenue by placing taxes on alcohol sales. Prohibition is officially repealed by the 21st amendment in December. -
The First Hundred Days
President Roosevelt begins his “first hundred days” in office and 15 laws are introduced rapidly to begin tackling the Great Depression. -
Closing of All Banks
Just five days after his inauguration, President Roosevelt creates the Emergency Banking Act, launching the New Deal. In order to prevent even more terrible failures, the act closed all banks in the United States. Throughout his time in office, Roosevelt would sign many more acts that would aid reform and recovery form the depression. -
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration is created by the Emergency Relief Appropriation, hiring 8.5 million people to help with the unemployment crisis. -
The End of the Great Depression
The economy started to grow again this year, eventually bringing the country out of the Great Depression. However, unemployment rates were still extremely high. -
Truman Doctrine
In an address to Congress, President Harry Truman states that the foreign policy of the United States is to assist any country whose stability is threatened by communism. The policy becomes known as the Truman Doctrine. -
Executive Order
President Harry Truman issues Executive Order 9981 to end segregation in the Armed Services. -
Vietnam is a Threat
The United States, identifying the Viet Minh as a Communist threat, steps up military assistance to France for their operations against the Viet Minh. -
Civil Rights Act of 1957
Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1957 into law to help protect voter rights. The law allows federal prosecution of those who suppress another’s right to vote. -
The Nixon Administration Takes Place
The Nixon administration gradually reduces the number of U.S. forces in South Vietnam, placing more burden on the ground forces of South Vietnam’s ARVN as part of a strategy known as Vietnamization. U.S. troops in Vietnam are reduced from a peak of 549,000 in 1969 to 69,000 in 1972. -
The Nixon Administration Takes Place
The Nixon administration gradually reduces the number of U.S. forces in South Vietnam, placing more burden on the ground forces of South Vietnam’s ARVN as part of a strategy known as Vietnamization. U.S. troops in Vietnam are reduced from a peak of 549,000 in 1969 to 69,000 in 1972. -
"I Have A Dream"
Approximately 250,000 people take part in The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Martin Luther King gives his “I Have A Dream” speech as the closing address in front of the Lincoln Memorial. -
U.S. Declares War of Vietnam
USS Maddox on an espionage mission is attacked by North Vietnamese patrol torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. The incidents lead President Johnson to call for air strikes on North Vietnamese patrol boat bases. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, preventing employment discrimination due to race, color, sex, religion or national origin. Title VII of the Act establishes the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to help prevent workplace discrimination. -
Strikes Against War
In Operation Starlite, some 5,500 U.S. Marines strike against the First Viet Cong Regiment in the first major ground offensive by U.S. forces in Vietnam. The six-day operation diffuses the Viet Cong regiment, although it would quickly rebuild. -
Richard Nixon Takes the Office
Republican Richard M. Nixon wins the U.S. presidential elections on the campaign promises to restore “law and order” and to end the draft. -
MLKJ's Assassination
Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated on the balcony of his hotel room in Memphis, Tennessee. James Earl Ray is convicted of the murder in 1969.