For thirteen years from 1920, the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic drinks was banned in the USA. The age of prohibition was a rowdy time: enlivened by jazz and wild parties; darkened by violence and lawlessness. But how did it come about? Who were its heroes and villains? And how did it change the face of the country it sought to purify?
Th ... Show More
Apr 12
The American Civil War (Part Two of Two)
In the decades since the United States declared their independence from Britain, the question of slavery had become increasingly divisive. As the nation expanded, fragile political agreements over the issue failed, and the frontier became a battleground. When Abraham Lincoln was ... Show More
59m 7s
Feb 2018
Prohibition - Closing Time | 1
<p>On January 17, 1920, the United States passed the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution, ushering in a 13-year dry spell known as Prohibition. But how did a country that loved to drink turn its back on alcohol? How did two-thirds of both the House and Senate and three-fourths ... Show More
37m 33s
Feb 2018
Prohibition - Drying Out | 2
<p>When a German U-boat torpedoed the RMS Lusitania on Friday, May 7th, 1915, Americans found two new enemies: Germany and the beer it was so associated with. Anti-German sentiment grew, and with it hostility to the breweries founded in the 19th century by German immigrants. Soon ... Show More
29m 49s
Mar 2018
Prohibition - We Want Beer | 6
<p>The people had spoken: They wanted beer, and they wanted it now, but not just for drinking. Protestors wanted the jobs that came with breweries, and the country was desperate from the money that could come from alcohol taxes. As quickly as temperance organizations sprang up in ... Show More
34m 38s