The Prohibition era began just as World War I was drawing to a close. Not every American soldier was happy about returning to a dry country.

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The Eighteenth Amendment, which was ratified in January 1919, inaugurated the era of Prohibition by outlawing the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors" in the United States.

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The international movement to abolish the slave trade and the practice of slavery began in Britain and elsewhere in Europe in the eighteenth century.

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The Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, only applied to the Confederacy and did not actually free most slaves in the South, but it did have a powerful symbolic effect and increased diplomatic support for the Union.

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The Emancipation Proclamation had two parts. The first stated that enslaved people in any of the Confederate states that did not return to the Union by January 1863 would be freed. The second part freed all enslaved people held in the rebellious states, at least in theory.

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At the outset of the Civil War, public opinion in the North was generally unfavorable to immediate abolition.

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Abraham Lincoln's attitude to the slavery issue was complex. We'll learn why on today's podcast.

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The Corwin Amendment was created in order to avoid the Civil War. It would have outlawed future amendments that abolished slavery. However, the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter began the Civil War, and the amendment was never ratified. Instead, in 1864 Abraham Lincoln began lobby for passage an amendment to abolish slavery.

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A social culture of reform in pre-Civil War America was the fertile soil in which a variety of movements against slavery grew.

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Several movements to abolish slavery were formed during the Revolutionary era.

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