The document discusses the history of transportation in the 1800s and early 1900s. It describes the first steam locomotive railway in 1804 in Wales. It then discusses the authorization of a transcontinental railroad in the US in 1853 to connect the east and west coasts. Two private companies, Union Pacific and Central Pacific, were formed to build the railroad and were given land grants and loans to finance construction. The railroad was completed in 1869, connecting Omaha, Nebraska to Sacramento, California. The document also briefly summarizes Prohibition in the US from 1920 to 1933, when the 18th Amendment banned alcohol but was later repealed by the 21st Amendment in 1933.

1. Life in 1800 and 1900

2. The first railway
On 21 February 1804, the world's
first steam-powered railway
journey took place when
Trevithick's unnamed steam
locomotive hauled a train along
the tramway of the Penydarren
ironworks, near Merthyr Tydfil in
South Wales.

3. In March 1853 Congress authorized
an inspection of the territories to be
crossed to evaluate the opportunity
to approve a new transcontinental
route. At the time, the Minister of
War was Jefferson Davis, who,
infused with the nationalist doctrine
of Marshall and Adams, did
everything in his possession to favor,
for strategic reasons, the approval of
the Southern transcontinental line,
including the purchase from part of
the United States government of a
territory of Mexico where the line
would pass in December 1853.

4. The construction of the transcontinental railroad
was entrusted to two large newly formed companies,
Union Pacific and Central Pacific.The two
companies were supposed to build two different
routes and were to meet at an undefined point on
the central route.The line was to cross California,
Nevada, Utah,Wyoming and the newly established
state of Nebraska. Union Pacific, founded in 1861,
was supposed to start the line from Omaha,
Nebraska, while Central Pacific, founded in
Sacramento in 1858 by four entrepreneurs known
as the "Big Four", was supposed to start laying the
rails from the Californian city .
The financing of such a costly work could not be
directly supported by the government, so the Pacific
Railroad Act decreed that, in addition to the loan of
a sum for each mile of railway built, the two
companies were assigned lots of land in
uninhabited areas where the line would have
passed. Congress determined that $ 16,000 would
be lent to the companies on every level mile on flat
ground, 32,000 on hilly terrain and 48,000 for
mountain lines.

5. Prohibition
The 18th Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution banned the manufacture,
transportation and sale of intoxicating
liquors.
Prohibition was difficult to enforce.The
increase of the illegal production and sale of
liquor (known as “bootlegging”), the
proliferation of speakeasies (illegal drinking
spots) and the accompanying rise in gang
violence and other crimes led to waning
support for Prohibition by the end of the
1920s. In early 1933, Congress adopted a
resolution proposing a 21st Amendment to
the Constitution that would repeal the 18th.
The 21st Amendment was ratified on
December 5, 1933, ending Prohibition.