Prior to 1969, the National League champion ( the " pennant winner ") was determined by the best win-loss record at the end of the regular season.

Prior to 2001, the northern end of the freeway portion of US 131 was located at the southern entrance to Cadillac.

Prior to that, a census was conducted in 1989 at the end of the communist regime.

Prior to the end of the slave trade and widespread abolition, when indigenous labour was unavailable, slaves were often imported to the Americas, first by the Spanish Empire, and later by the Dutch, French and British.

Prior to his inauguration, he led a meeting of advisors at Pearl Harbor addressing foremost issues ; agreed objectives were to balance the budget during his term, to bring the Korean War to an end, to defend vital interests at lower cost through nuclear deterrent, and to end price and wage controls.

Prior to this, the goal line and end line were the same, and players scored a touchdown by leaving the field of play through that line.

Prior to the start of the game, a coin is tossed and the winning captain can choose a starting end or start with the ball.

Prior to 1934, the annual message was delivered at the end of the calendar year, in December.

Prior to the end of the Cold War, the consensus among students of large-scale violence was that ethnic groups should be considered irrational actors, or semi-rational at best.

Casa Rocca Grande was built by Fra Pietro La Rocca, Prior of Santo Stefano, towards the end of the 16th century and formed part of a magnificent palace with double entrances in the style of the Grandmaster's Palace.

Following the election of Prior Ernulf in 1096, Lanfranc's inadequate east end was demolished, and replaced with an eastern arm 198 feet long, doubling the length of the cathedral.

The supercilious " abbot in waiting ", Prior Robert Pennant ( 1148 – 1167 ) succeeded Radulfus some time after the end of the Cadfael Chronicles.

Prior to its current location in Crown Point, Indiana, the county seat was located on what is now the west end of Lake Station in a section called Liverpool.

Prior to 1945, " Kimigayo " served as the national anthem of the Empire of Japan, however, when the Empire of Japan was dissolved following its surrender at the end of World War II, its parliamentary democracy successor state, the State of Japan, replaced it in 1945, the polity therefore changed from an absolute monarchy to a parliamentary democracy.

Prior to the end of the last ice age the Purbeck Hills were continuous with the Isle of Wight and the Frome would have continued east through what is now Poole Harbour and Poole Bay, into The Solent, collecting the Stour, Beaulieu, Test and Itchen, before flowing into the Channel east of what is now the Isle of Wight.

Prior to Pearl Harbor, training centres were made available for the RAF ; by war's end, 16, 000 RAF aircrew were trained in the United States.

Prior to the introduction of the Bulletin Board System ( BBS ), modems typically operated on direct-dial telephone lines that always began and ended with a particular modem at each end.

Prior to the end of World War II, the Swiss banking landscape was dominated by Swiss Bank Corporation and Credit Suisse.

Prior to the end of the Secret War, General Kouprasith Abhay was named Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Lao Army.

Prior to the collapse of the multinational Austro-Hungarian empire towards the end of World War I, what now is the Republic of Austria had been part of a monarchy with an emperor as its head of state and chief executive.

Prior to construction of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, otherwise known as the Salmon Bay Waterway, water used to exit Lake Washington via the Black River which flowed from the south end of Lake Washington into the Duwamish River.

However, towards the end of the 2004 season, Prior seemed to return to form.

Prior had hoped to pitch again by May or June of the 2008 season, but a shoulder tear during his rehab at the end of May 2008 required surgery that forced him to miss his second consecutive season.

Prior to this, the four teams at the top of the ladder at the end of what are now called home-and-away games made up the ' final four '.

Prior to this — before the Second World War — he was content with the role of an apolitical liberal intellectual: " Now teaching at a lycée in Laon [...] Sartre made his headquarters the Dome café at the crossing of Montparnasse and Raspail boulevards.

Prior to the release of Windows Media Player in Windows 98 Second Edition, separate programs, CD Player, Deluxe CD Player, DVD Player and Media Player, were included in old versions of Microsoft Windows for playback of media files.

Prior to this, there was an Australian version of Second Chance that aired in 1977 on Network Ten hosted by Earle Bailey and Christine Broadway and also produced by Grundy.

Prior to the Second World War, the township was a resort area with trains coming from New York City to stations at Charlotteburg, Newfoundland, Oak Ridge in the south and Hewitt ( also known as Sterling Forest station ) and Awosting in the north.

Prior to the establishment of the Second Law, many people who were interested in inventing a perpetual motion machine had tried to circumvent the restrictions of First Law of Thermodynamics by extracting the massive internal energy of the environment as the power of the machine.

Prior to the start of the Second World War technology had improved so that it appeared that the interceptor mission would be effectively impossible.

Prior to the Second World War, Kaunas, like many other cities in eastern Europe, had a significant Jewish population.

Prior to the Second Morrill Act, 17 states excluded blacks from access to the land grant colleges without providing similar educational opportunities.

Prior to the construction of The Pentagon during the 1940s, the Second Empire-style Ohio State Asylum for the Insane in Columbus, Ohio was reported to be the largest building under one roof in the U. S., though the title may actually belong to Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, another Kirkbride Second Empire asylum.

Prior to 1827 the First Lord of the Treasury also held the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer unless he was a peer and thus barred from that office ; in this case, the Second Lord of the Treasury usually served as Chancellor.

Prior to the Second World War, virtually all hog troughs were homemade.

Prior to the Grimsby Turnpike Act of 1765 the road ( track ) through Swallow seems to have followed a line close to Chapel Lane ; a green road ran from Swallow to Rothwell until the Second World War when it was ploughed up to grow crops and never re-instated.

Prior to the Second World War Ringelblum worked for various social organizations.

Prior to disestablishment, Second Fleet oversaw approximately 126 ships, 4500 aircraft, and 90, 000 personnel homeported at U. S. Navy installations along the East Coast.

Prior to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, it marked the end of a three-week period when church weddings were forbidden.

Prior to the establishment of the Empire, the territories of the Roman Republic had been divided among the members of the Second Triumvirate: Mark Antony, Octavian and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus.

Prior to the reforms instituted after the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic Church mandated fasting ( only one full meal per day plus two partial, meatless meals ) on all Ember Days ( which meant both fasting and abstinence from meat on Ember Fridays ), and the faithful were encouraged ( though not required ) to receive the sacrament of penance whenever possible.

* Royal Order of Saint George for the Defense of the Immaculate Conception, Second Grand Prior of the order

Prior to the Second World War, there usually existed a division of racing for cars smaller and less powerful than Grand Prix racers.

Prior to the Second World War the British had built a large airfield to house a permanent RAF base, RAF China Bay and a fuel storage and support facilities for the Royal Navy and HMS Highflyer naval base based there.

Prior to the see of Constantinople's elevation to the dignity of Patriarch by the Second Ecumenical Council in 381, the primary jurisdiction in Asia Minor was the Patriarchate of Antioch.

Prior to the Second World War, the majority of immigrants to Australia had come from the United Kingdom-though most of Australia's Catholic immigrants had come from Ireland.

( See Pastoral Care of the Sick, USA numbers 243, 265 ) Prior to the Second Vatican Council, the Apostolic Pardon was called the Apostolic Blessing.