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, John Scopes, was duly convicted, although this was later overturned on a technicality. Concerning the Scopes Monkey Trial, Uncommondescent.com declared: "It is a little known fact that [[William Jennings Bryan]] agreed to be interrogated by [[Clarence Darrow]] only if Bryan could in turn interrogate Darrow views of [[evolution]]. Darrow agreed, but then right after interrogating Bryan directed the judge to find Scopes guilty, thereby closing the evidence and thus preventing Bryan from interrogating Darrow"<ref>http://www.uncommondescent.com/evolution/the-vise-strategy-squeezing-the-truth-out-of-darwinists/</ref>.
The trial gained notoriety after it was dramatized for both stage (1955) and screen (1960). Titled ''[[Inherit the Wind]]'', both dramatizations distorted the facts of the case and were promoted to harm [[Christianity]].<ref>"'Inherit the Wind' relentlessly distorts what happened 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 of ''Inherit the Wind'' as "a dramatization of the 1925 [Scopes] trial."[http://www.villagevoice.com/theater/0716,feingold,76394,11.html]</ref> The 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.