Q 01/05

On what date did the United States officially go 'dry' under the Eighteenth Amendment?

A) July 4, 1920

B) December 5, 1921

C) January 17, 1920

D) January 16, 1919

Answer · why

C) January 17, 1920

The amendment was ratified a year earlier but built in a twelve-month grace period; only Connecticut and Rhode Island never ratified it.

Q 02/05

What was the popular name of the 1919 law that defined 'intoxicating liquors' and set penalties for making them?

A) The Hobson Act

B) The Mann Act

C) The Sheppard Act

D) The Volstead Act

Answer · why

D) The Volstead Act

Congress passed it over Woodrow Wilson's veto, then never gave the government the money to enforce it.

Q 03/05

By 1925, roughly how many speakeasies were estimated to be operating in New York City alone?

A) Around 3,000

B) Over 250,000

C) Around 10,000

D) 30,000 to 100,000

Answer · why

D) 30,000 to 100,000

Prohibition ended in December 1933 with the Twenty-first Amendment, the only amendment ever passed to repeal another one.

Q 04/05

Al Capone was finally sent to prison in 1931 for what crime?

A) First-degree murder

B) Bootlegging liquor

C) Tax evasion

D) Extortion racketeering

Answer · why

C) Tax evasion

He was sentenced to more than a decade and later shipped to the newly opened Alcatraz; the tax strategy against gangsters was reportedly the idea of A...

Q 05/05

How many men were killed in the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929?

A) Four

B) Nine

C) Five

D) Seven

Answer · why

D) Seven

Two of the gunmen were dressed as police officers; the intended target, 'Bugs' Moran, had not yet arrived at the garage.