Changes

The '''Scopes Trial''', sometimes known as the "Scopes monkey trial," took place in [[Tennessee]] in 1925. It was engineered as a challenge to the state's Butler Act which prohibited public schools from teaching the theory that man had evolved from more primitive life forms. The willing defendant, [[was John T. Scopes]](1900- 1970), a teacher who had volunteered for the challenge. Scopes was duly convicted, although this and the conviction was later soon overturned on a technicalityand never appealed. The trial gained notoriety after it was dramatized for both stage (1955) and screen (1960). Titled ''[[Inherit the Wind]]'', both dramatizations distorted the facts one of the case and were promoted to harm [[Christianity]].<ref>"'Inherit the Wind' relentlessly distorts what happened most watched epsiodes in Dayton, Tenn., in 1925."[http://www.beliefnet.com/story/2/story_226_1.html]</ref><ref>As recently as April 17, 2007, the ''Village Voice'' endorsed a new Broadway rendition history of ''Inherit the Wind'' as "a dramatization of the 1925 [Scopes] trialAmerican religious and American education."[http://www.villagevoice.com/theater/0716,feingold,76394,11.html]</ref>  The dramatic highlight of the trial was when [[Clarence Darrow]] agreed to testify as a witness if [[William Jennings Bryan]] would also testify. First Bryan testified before a huge crowd, but when Darrow's turn came he instead reneged on his deal and ended the trial by asking the jury to find his client guilty, which ended the trial.