March 23
MONKEY DAY
An evolution law, enacted this day in the great State of Tennessee in the year 1925, made it a crime for a teacher in any state-supported public school or college to teach any theory that contradicted the Bible’s account of man’s creation. Tennessee’s Governor Austin Peay said, “The very integrity of the Bible in its statement of man’s divine creation is denied by any theory that man descended or has ascended from any lower order of animals.” Opponents planned to challenge the law, denouncing it as a violation of the constitutional principle of separation of church and state.
Within two months, a Dayton, Tennessee high school science teacher, John T. Scopes was indicted, and later convicted, in the famous ‘Monkey Trial’ for teaching his students the theory of evolution; that man descended from a lower order of animals ... or monkeys. Scopes was fined $100. Defense Attorney Clarence Darrow stated that this was “the first case of its kind since we stopped trying people for witchcraft.”
Remember this the next time you think about swinging from a tree ... especially while eating a banana and singing, “Yaba daba daba.”
Those Were the Days, the Today in History service from 440 International
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