Just as militant Islamists continue to bear a grudge over the abolishment of the Islamic Caliphate in 1924, militant atheists continue to bear a grudge over a $100 fine which was imposed on John Thomas Scopes on this day 83 years ago in Dayton, Tennessee. It all started in January 1925 when the Tennessee legislature passed a bill making it unlawful to “teach that man has descended from a lower order of animals”.
A group of businessmen in Dayton thought that they could put their town on the map if they could stage a controversial trial, so it was arranged that high school teacher John Scopes should teach evolution and then be put on trial. The original prosecutors were friends of Scopes, but a famous former presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan (who had not tried a case in 36 years) joined the prosecution team, and the defence team was headed by Clarence Darrow, who had a reputation as the best defence lawyer in the country in murder cases.
The trial itself was something of a farce. The various parties wanted to debate whether or not evolution was true, whereas the judge was just interested in the issue of whether the defendant was guilty of the offence with which he had been charged. The defence even took the extraordinary step of calling the prosecution lawyer Bryan to testify, in an effort to demonstrate that belief in the historicity of the Bible was unreasonable. In the end, to the satisfaction of all parties, Scopes was found guilty and fined $100. The conviction was overturned on appeal on a technicality.