Today: Headlines from 25 May 1925

Today 100 Years Ago: A Time-Hop to 25 May 1925

A century ago, radios crackled with news that felt as electrifying then as our quantum-network push notifications do in 2025. Step with me into that Monday in 1925—flapper dresses swishing, Model T engines sputtering, and one small Southern town preparing to fight a battle over nothing less than humanity’s origin story.

1. Tennessee vs. Evolution – The Scopes Indictment Shakes Dayton

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John T. Scopes, a 24-year-old football coach moon-lighting as a biology teacher, walked into the Rhea County courthouse in Dayton, Tennessee, and learned he was now officially the defendant in what newspapers instantly dubbed “the Monkey Trial.” His alleged crime? Violating the brand-new Butler Act by daring to mention Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to his students.

• How it unfolded: Local businessmen hoping to put Dayton on the map invited the American Civil Liberties Union to challenge the law. Scopes, genial and unmarried, volunteered as the test case. On 25 May 1925 a grand jury—after just a few minutes’ deliberation—returned an indictment. Bail was set at a modest $1,000, posted by a science-textbook salesman. The stage was set for a hot Tennessee July when Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan would spar beneath sweltering ceiling fans.

• Why it mattered: The indictment crystallized the era’s tug-of-war between modern science and religious fundamentalism, urban modernity and rural tradition. Even before the trial, telegrams poured in, reporters booked train tickets, and hotel owners scrounged for extra cots.

• Echoes in 2025: A hundred years on, we’re editing genomes with CRISPR, debating AI-generated textbooks, and livestreaming university lectures to Mars-bound astronauts. Yet school boards still quarrel over curriculum and parents still fret about what children are taught. Substitute "evolution" for "climate change" or "gender studies" and the headlines feel eerily familiar.

Closing Reflection

History rarely moves in straight lines. The Scopes indictment reminds us that progress triggers backlash, curiosity battles certainty, and the classroom is often the first arena where society tests its newest ideas. As we hurtle toward quantum computing and synthetic biology, spare a thought for the young teacher who, on this day in 1925, became a reluctant icon of academic freedom.