How onions got banned
1955
Two traders — Vincent Kosuga and Sam Siegel — cornered the entire Chicago onion market, hoarding so many onions they controlled 98% of every bulb in the city.
Then they flooded the market and crashed it so hard that a 50-pound bag of onions sold for less than the empty sack that held it. Growers were wiped out.
1958
The fallout was so severe that Congress passed the Onion Futures Act of 1958. Eisenhower signed it. To this day, onions remain the only commodity in America you legally cannot trade as a future.