evolution
type: Concept
narrower: Scopes Trial

Scopes Trial
type: Concept
alternative label: Monkey Trial
definition: On July 10, 1925, a high school biology teacher, John T. Scopes of Dayton, Tennessee, was charged in court with teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act, a law recently passed by the Tennessee State Assembly that made it an offense to teach “any theory that denies the…Divine Creation of man.” The “Monkey Trial” attracted worldwide attention, filling the newspapers for weeks as two of the leading lawyers of the day, William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow for the defense, battled it out in the stifling Dayton courtroom. Once the trial was over, it was replayed in books, movies, and plays, being immortalized most memō rably in only slightly fictionalized form by the 1960Stanley Kramer film Inherit the Wind. [Source: Encyclopedia of Anthropology; Monkey Trial [1925]]
end: 1925
start: 1925
date: 1925
broader: evolution

concepts
type: Collection
type: ConceptGroup
member: Scopes Trial