Who was responsible for lowering the drinking age to 18 for part of the 20th century, though?
Believe it or not, Franklin Roosevelt helped prompt the change in a rather circuitous fashion. FDR approved lowering the minimum age for the military draft from 21 to 18 during World War II. When the Vietnam-era draft rolled around, though, people were understandably a bit peeved that 18-year-old men were mature enough to fight, but not old enough to vote. Thus, in 1971 the states ratified the Twenty-sixth Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18. Legislators started applying the same logic to drinking. The drinking age, which the 21st Amendment made the responsibility of individual states, started dropping around the country. Critics of the change decried rises in alcohol-related traffic fatalities among 18-20 year-old drivers in areas where the drinking age had been lowered. Indeed, one result of leaving states in charge of their own age was the creation of “blood borders” between states that allowed 18-year-olds to drink and those that didn’t. Teenagers from the more restrictiv
