Today: Headlines From 21 May 1925
A Century in a Day
Every sunrise has its own headlines. Step with me into 21 May 1925—a day when classrooms, city streets, and grand exhibition halls all crackled with possibility. Here are three stories that filled the newspapers exactly 100 years ago, and a quick look at why they still echo in 2025.
1. Dayton, Tennessee—Science on Trial
John T. Scopes Indicted for Teaching Evolution
Twenty-four-year-old substitute biology teacher John T. Scopes was formally charged today with violating Tennessee’s brand-new Butler Act, which forbids teaching human evolution in public schools. The grand-jury indictment sets the stage for what locals are already calling “the Monkey Trial.”
What happened?
- Scopes, prodded by civic boosters seeking publicity, admitted to using a state-approved textbook that mentioned Darwin.
- Townsfolk jammed the Rhea County Courthouse steps as news broke; national reporters—and traveling circus barkers—are booking rooms for the summer trial.
- William Jennings Bryan has promised to join the prosecution; rumors swirl that Clarence Darrow may defend.
2025 quick-take:
A century later, the debate over what belongs in science class now extends to climate change, gene editing, and AI. Yet the core question—who decides what our kids learn—feels uncannily familiar.
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2. Paris, France—The City of Light Goes Full Art Deco
Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs Hits Its Stride
Nearly a month after its April opening, the 1925 Art Deco Exposition is reaching fever pitch this week. On 21 May, attendance topped 150 000 in a single day as visitors flocked to the Seine embankments to marvel at streamlined skyscraper models, lacquered furniture, and jazz-age fashions.
Why it matters:
- The fair is giving a name—“Art Déco”—to a style that will soon ripple through architecture from Shanghai to São Paulo.
- Designers like Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann and Le Corbusier are debuting works that rethink how ordinary people might live in modern cities.
- Women designers, including Eileen Gray, are showcased alongside men—still rare in 1925.
2025 quick-take:
Walk any downtown skyline filled with geometric towers—or swipe through design-inspo on your phone—and you’ll spot Art Deco DNA. Today’s sustainable-materials pavilions at World Expos owe more than a little to Paris 1925.
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3. Central United States—Night of the Twisters
Back-to-Back Tornadoes Rake Missouri and Kansas
Late on 20 May and into the small hours of 21 May 1925, a violent storm line spawned at least nine tornadoes, including two estimated F4 twisters that tore through rural Missouri farming towns. Preliminary tallies list 18 dead and hundreds homeless.
Details:
- Telegraph lines snapped, delaying rescue trains out of St. Louis.
- Farmers described barns “lifted like matchboxes” and hail “the size of hen’s eggs.”
- Local Red Cross chapters are appealing for tents and medical supplies.
2025 quick-take:
With climate models predicting stronger storm seasons, today’s meteorologists lean on Doppler radar, satellites, and smartphone alerts—tools unimaginable to 1925 forecasters who relied on barometers and bare-eye sky reading.
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Looking Back, Moving Forward
From a small-town classroom challenging orthodoxy, to Parisian boulevards defining the next design craze, to heartland skies turning black—21 May 1925 reminds us that history is lived one unpredictable day at a time. What links 1925 to 2025 is the human instinct to question, to create, and to brace against the wind while imagining something better just ahead.