1933The 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, ending the 1919 ban on the sale and importation of alcohol that was mandated by the 18th Amendment.1955The historic bus boycott began in Montgomery, Ala. Four days earlier, Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, refused to yield her seat to a white man on a bus. She was arrested and fined. The boycott of public buses by African-Americans in Montgomery began on the day of Parks’ court hearing and lasted 381 days.