On December 5th 1933 Prohibition in the United States ended.

Prohibition, or the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, effectively banned the production, importation, manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in the country, although not, at least under federal law, the consumption or private ownership of them. Some local laws did ban the consumption and private ownership of alcohol.

The next 13 years were known as Prohibition, when alcohol was banned yet still widely available. Organised crime grew to fill the demand, and government lost huge amounts of tax money.

The Twenty-first Amendment, which was ratified on this day, repealed the Eighteenth Amendment. The question as to whether Prohibition actually accomplished anything beneficial is still debated.

Image: By U.S. Government (NARA [1]) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons (commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:23rd_Amendment_Pg1of1_AC.jpg)