In 1925, Tennessee passed the Butler Act, which made it illegal to teach human evolution in public schools. Basically, teachers could only say that God created humans — anything about apes and evolution was off-limits.

Enter John T. Scopes — a high school science teacher who decided to test the law by teaching evolution. He got arrested and put on trial in what became a media circus.

The trial got even more ridiculous lol

Real monkeys were brought to the courthouse for publicity.
Lawyers literally debated whether the Bible should be taken literally in a court of law.
Scopes' defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, grilled the prosecutor, William Jennings Bryan, on his religious beliefs — basically turning the trial into a clash between science and religion.
In the end, Scopes was found guilty and fined $100 (about $1,600 today). The ruling was later overturned on a technicality — but the Butler Act stayed in place until 1967.

So yeah… a teacher got dragged to court for teaching basic science. Hope we don't back to those days.

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