May 16 Illinois History Minute

It’s May 16th, and on this day in 1907, the Illinois General Assembly passed a bill allowing local governments to ban the sale of alcoholic beverages within their borders.

It was a compromise measure, following the failure of a proposal to ban alcohol sales statewide. Friends and foes of prohibition in Illinois would continue to battle over the issue until 1919, when the General Assembly voted to ratify the Eighteenth Amendment.

Writer and actor Studs Terkel was born in Chicago on this day in 1912. Studs gained fame and a Pulitzer Prize for his books compiling the words of ordinary Americans into chronicles of the Depression, World War Two, race relations and other topics.

Studs Terkel was the longtime host of an interview program on Chicago’s WFMT Radio, which first went on the air on this day in 1948.