Today: Headlines from 22 April 1925

✧ Today 100 Years Ago: A Glimpse of 22 April 1925

One hundred years may feel like a gulf, but leafing through the newspapers of 22 April 1925 (and the twenty-four hours on either side) shows a world every bit as restless, inventive, and anxious as our own. From a dusty courthouse in the American South to a tense committee room in Geneva and the steamy river-ports of Brazil, here are three stories that crackled across the wires exactly a century ago.

1. Dayton’s Dare: A Science Teacher Volunteers for a Showdown (21 April 1925)

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A slow Tuesday in Dayton, Tennessee turned historic when local boosters gathered at Robinson’s drug-store and persuaded 24-year-old teacher John T. Scopes to become the test case against the state’s brand-new Butler Act, which forbade teaching evolution in public schools. Scopes’s casual agreement—“Sure, why not?”—set the stage for what would soon be called the Monkey Trial, a courtroom bout that pitted modern science against fundamentalist faith and drew international headlines.

Fast-forward to 2025: Genetics lessons stream to tablets in every classroom, CRISPR headlines compete with AI news, and yet school boards still feud over textbooks. The Dayton dare reminds us that culture wars rarely disappear; they just change costumes.

2. Geneva Grapples with Gas Warfare (22 April 1925)

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On the tenth anniversary of the first large-scale poison-gas attack of World War I, delegates at the League of Nations opened a special disarmament session in Geneva. Top of the agenda: drafting an agreement to prohibit chemical and biological weapons. Survivors of Ypres lobbied in the corridors, displaying scarred lungs and burn-pocked skin as grim evidence.

Their work would culminate two months later in the Geneva Protocol, still a cornerstone of today’s arms-control architecture—even as 2025 negotiators struggle with autonomous drones and gene-edited pathogens. The 1925 debates prove that technology keeps racing ahead of our rules—and that treaties, however imperfect, can save countless lives.

3. Into the Green Hell: Percy Fawcett’s Final Expedition (23 April 1925)

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With the rainy-season clouds boiling over Mato Grosso, British explorer Lt. Col. Percy Fawcett pushed off from the Brazilian frontier town of Cuiabá, bound for the unmapped interior in search of a mythical “Lost City of Z.” Alongside him: his 22-year-old son Jack and Jack’s best friend Raleigh Rimell. Local newspapers fretted over the trio’s minimalist kit—no radio, scant rations, supreme confidence.

Fawcett’s last telegram, sent this very week a century ago, read: “You need have no fear of any failure.” The world would never hear from him again. In 2025, satellite phones and GPS trackers blanket the globe, yet the Amazon still swallows drones and dreams alike. Fawcett’s vanishing remains a cautionary tale about hubris, mystery, and the planet’s stubborn wildness.

Why These 24 Hours Still Matter

• They spotlight the perennial tug-of-war between belief and evidence. • They show diplomacy’s slow grind toward rules of restraint in warfare. • They capture humanity’s unquenchable thirst for exploration—sometimes at any cost.

History isn’t a relic; it’s a mirror. Tilt it 100 years, and the reflections feel startlingly familiar.