Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage, transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic beverages. The word is also used to refer to a period of time during which such bans are enforced.
The Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution established the prohibition of alcohol in the United States. The amendment was proposed by Congress on December 18, 1917, and ratified by the requisite number of states on January 16, 1919. The Eighteenth Amendment was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment on December 5, 1933—it is the only constitutional amendment in American history to be repealed.
Henry Pelham was a British Whig statesman who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1743 until his death in 1754. He was the younger brother of Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, who served in Pelham's government and succeeded him as prime minister. Pelham is generally considered to have been Britain's third prime minister, after Robert Walpole and the Earl of Wilmington.
Irish whiskey is whiskey made on the island of Ireland. The word 'whiskey' comes from the Irish uisce beatha, meaning water of life. Irish whiskey was once the most popular spirit in the world, though a long period of decline from the late 19th century onwards greatly damaged the industry, so much so that although Ireland boasted at least 28 distilleries in the 1890s, by 1966 this number had fallen to just two, and by 1972 the remaining distilleries, Bushmills Distillery and Old Midleton Distillery, were owned by just one company, Irish Distillers.
The Sugar Act 1764 or Sugar Act 1763, also known as the American Revenue Act 1764 or the American Duties Act, was a revenue-raising act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain on 5 April 1764. The preamble to the act stated: "it is expedient that new provisions and regulations should be established for improving the revenue of this Kingdom ... and ... it is just and necessary that a revenue should be raised ... for defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the same." The earlier Molasses Act 1733, which had imposed a tax of six pence per gallon of molasses, had never been effectively collected due to colonial evasion. By reducing the rate by half and increasing measures to enforce the tax, Parliament hoped that the tax would actually be collected. These incidents increased the colonists' concerns about the intent of the British Parliament and helped the growing movement that became the American Revolution.
The alcohol licensing laws of the United Kingdom regulate the sale and consumption of alcohol, with separate legislation for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland being passed, as necessary, by the UK parliament, the Senedd in Wales, the Northern Ireland Assembly, and the Scottish Parliament respectively.
The Gin Craze was a period in the first half of the 18th century when the consumption of gin increased rapidly in Great Britain, especially in London. Daniel Defoe commented: "the Distillers have found out a way to hit the palate of the Poor, by their new fashion'd compound Waters called Geneva, so that the common People seem not to value the French-brandy as usual, and even not to desire it".
Purposeful production of alcoholic drinks is common and often reflects cultural and religious peculiarities as much as geographical and sociological conditions.
In the United States, the nationwide ban on alcoholic beverages, was repealed by the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution on December 5, 1933.
The Sale of Spirits Act 1750 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain which was enacted in order to reduce the consumption of gin and other distilled spirits, a popular pastime that was regarded as one of the primary causes of crime in London. By prohibiting gin distillers from selling to unlicensed merchants and increasing fees charged to merchants, it eliminated small gin shops, thereby restricting the distribution of gin to larger distillers and retailers in the Kingdom of Great Britain.
In English and British history, poor relief refers to government and ecclesiastical action to relieve poverty. Over the centuries, various authorities have needed to decide whose poverty deserves relief and also who should bear the cost of helping the poor. Alongside ever-changing attitudes towards poverty, many methods have been attempted to answer these questions. Since the early 16th century legislation on poverty enacted by the English Parliament, poor relief has developed from being little more than a systematic means of punishment into a complex system of government-funded support and protection, especially following the creation in the 1940s of the welfare state. Poor relief will control crime if adequately given.
The alcohol laws of Kansas are among the strictest in the United States, in sharp contrast to its neighboring state of Missouri, and similar to its other neighboring state of Oklahoma. Legislation is enforced by the Kansas Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
Beer Street and Gin Lane are two prints issued in 1751 by English artist William Hogarth in support of what would become the Gin Act. Designed to be viewed alongside each other, they depict the evils of the consumption of gin as a contrast to the merits of drinking beer. At almost the same time and on the same subject, Hogarth's friend Henry Fielding published An Inquiry into the Late Increase in Robbers. Issued together with The Four Stages of Cruelty, the prints continued a movement started in Industry and Idleness, away from depicting the laughable foibles of fashionable society and towards a more cutting satire on the problems of poverty and crime.
The Prohibition era was a period in the United States from 1920 to 1933 during which a nationwide constitutional law prohibiting the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages was enacted. The alcohol industry was curtailed by a succession of state legislatures, and finally ended nationwide under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on January 16, 1919. Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933.
Alcohol laws are laws relating to manufacture, use, being under the influence of and sale of alcohol or alcoholic beverages. Common alcoholic beverages include beer, wine, (hard) cider, and distilled spirits. Definition of alcoholic beverage varies internationally, e.g., the United States defines an alcoholic beverage as "any beverage in liquid form which contains not less than one-half of one percent of alcohol by volume". Alcohol laws can restrict those who can produce alcohol, those who can buy it, when one can buy it, labelling and advertising, the types of alcoholic beverage that can be sold, where one can consume it, what activities are prohibited while intoxicated, and where one can buy it. In some cases, laws have even prohibited the use and sale of alcohol entirely.
The Witchcraft Act 1735 was an Act of the Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1735 which made it a crime for a person to claim that any human being had magical powers or was guilty of practising witchcraft. With this, the law abolished the hunting and executions of witches in Great Britain. The maximum penalty set out by the Act was a year's imprisonment.
The colonial molasses trade occurred throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the European colonies in the Americas. Molasses was a major trading product in the Americas, being produced by enslaved Africans on sugar plantations on European colonies. The good was a major import for the British North American colonies, which used molasses to produce rum, especially distilleries in New England. The finished product was then exported to Europe as part of the triangular trade.
The Spirits Act 1742 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain repealing the Gin Act 1736 in favour of lower taxes and licence fees.
In the Canadian province of Ontario, severe restrictions on the sale and consumption of alcoholic drink were imposed in localities during the later 19th century. Prohibition was imposed across the province under the 1916 Ontario Temperance Act, until restrictions were somewhat eased with the passage of the Liquor Control Act of 1927 which set up the still existing Liquor Control Board of Ontario. Regulations were further amended in 1934.
