December 5, 1933, was the date Prohibition was brought to an end with the ratification of the 21st Amendment to the US Constitution. It ended a 13-year ban on the sale and manufacture of alcohol in the United States and with it declared the whole experiment a failure.
Making and selling alcohol was banned by the 18th Amendment which was first passed by Congress in December of 1917, with each state then ratifying the amendment and it officially became law in January 1920.
The push for the ban had been gathering pace several decades before with the increase in temperance movements who argued strenuously that the abuse of alcohol was damaging society. Many states have even introduced bans on alcohol before the 18th Amendment was even brought to Congress such as the strong public opinion in those states.
In order to enforce Congress also passed the Volstead Act which gave agents from the Treasury Department the authority to apprehend bootleggers and destroy illegal stills.
However, a side-effect of Prohibition was the upsurge in organized crime and gangsters such as Al Capone rose to prominence and made huge amounts of money selling illicit alcohol. The unruly behavior that Prohibition has sought to stop was instead increasing and become more violent.
Alcohol was still flowing but the state and federal authorities were suffering due to an increase in the amount of money it cost to police Prohibition and the loss of revenue via a tax on alcohol.
With a change in public opinion in the early 1930s, the death knell for the 18th Amendment was sounded and officially replaced at the end of 1933.
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