Hello and welcome to This Day, a history show from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan.

It is week two in our year-long series, 50 weeks that shaped America, a collection of stories that we think helped bring us to this moment in U.S.

history as the country marks 250 years, which is the semi-Quincennial.

Semi-Quincennial is kind of a hard word to say.

It's even harder to say if you've had a few, which won't be an issue because this week we are headed to 1920 and the start of prohibition. The 18th

amendment had been ratified one year earlier and on January 16th of 1920, it all went into effect.

Close up the bars, dump out the booze, or maybe hide the booze in a back room. We will get into

that. We'll also get into why we think Prohibition was one of the 50

stories that helped shape this country. But suffice to say, this story is a very American blend

of social and cultural and political movements mixed with a dash of corruption, shaken by law

enforcement and poured over the rocks that are, I can't even finish this metaphor. I'm just

going to bail on it right here. But I tried. I tried. You go pretty far. I tried. Here, as always,

Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello, Jody. Hey there.

We've talked on this show about the melting pot and the stew, but has anyone compared the American experience to like a shaken or stirred cocktail?

No, and I think it's time we start to change that. Okay. Well, maybe we will.

A dash of bitters. So look, we're going to get into the deep roots of prohibition and how these kind of confluence of social and political

movements led to this moment. I did point out that January 16th of 1919 is when the 18th Amendment

is ratified. It's basically a year to prepare for January 16th, 1920. I want to read a quote

from the Sacramento Star describing the scenes on January 16th,

the day this goes into effect, but it basically says constitutional prohibition. The dream of reformers

for more than a century becomes a reality at a minute after midnight tonight in every nook and

corner of the U.S. and its possessions. And after the break,

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