Based on a true story of a teacher arrested for teaching his students evolution also known as the " Scopes Monkey Trial ," Spacey played defense lawyer Henry Drummond, a role that was made famous by actor Spencer Tracy in the 1960 film of the same name.

The Scopes Trial, formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was a landmark American legal case in 1925 in which high school science teacher, John Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which made it unlawful to teach evolution in any state-funded school.

Scopes was found guilty, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality and he went free.

Scopes, who had substituted for the regular biology teacher, was charged on May 5, 1925, with teaching evolution from a chapter in Civic Biology, a textbook by George William Hunter, that described the theory of evolution.

He was indicted on May 25, after three students testified against him at the grand jury, at the behest of Scopes.

As Scopes pointed out to James Presley in the book Center of the Storm, on which the two collaborated: " After was accepted by the state as a special prosecutor in the case, there was never any hope of containing the controversy within the bounds of constitutionality.

It was Mencken who provided the trial with its most colorful labels such as the " Monkey Trial " of " the infidel Scopes.

The court rejected this argument ( Scopes v. State, 154 Tenn. 105, 1927 ), holding that the determination of what laws cherished science was an issue for the legislature, not the judiciary:

After Scopes was convicted, creationists throughout the United States sought similar anti-evolution laws for their states.

At the site of the trial, the Rhea County Courthouse in Dayton, a $ 1-million restoration project was completed in 1979, which restored the second-floor courtroom to its original appearance during the Scopes trial.

Here, from July 10 to 21, 1925 JohnThomas Scopes, a County High School teacher, was tried for teaching that a man descended from a lower order of animals in violation of a lately passed state law.

Scopes was convicted.

The Scopes trial did not appear in the Encyclopædia Britannica until 1957, when its inclusion was spurred by the successful run of Inherit the Wind on Broadway, which was mentioned in the citation.

* John Scopes ( August 3, 1900 – October 21, 1970 ) – teacher charged with violating Tennessee's Butler Act and tried in a case popularly known as the Scopes Monkey Trial

John Thomas Scopes ( August 3, 1900 – October 21, 1970 ) was a teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, who was charged on May 5, 1925 for violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in Tenneissee schools.

In 1925 he was adviser on the Bible to Clarence Darrow in his defense of John Thomas Scopes, a schoolteacher who was charged with teaching evolution in his classes.

* 1925 – Scopes Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called " Monkey Trial " begins with John T. Scopes, a young high school science teacher accused of teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.

Scopes mentioned that while he couldn't remember whether he had actually taught evolution in class, he had, however, gone through the evolution chart and chapter with the class.

The whole matter has assumed the portion of Dayton and her merchants endeavoring to secure a large amount of notoriety and publicity with an open question as whether Scopes is a party to the plot or not.

* Booknotes interview with Edward Larson on Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion, June 28, 1998.

** Scopes Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called " Monkey Trial " begins with John T. Scopes, a young high school science teacher, accused of teaching evolution in violation of a Tennessee state law.

The Tennessee Butler Act was tested in the Scopes Trial of 1925, and continued in effect with the result that evolution was not taught in many schools.

Inherit the Wind ( 1960 film ) | Inherit the Wind ( 1960 ), the first of four films Tracy made with Stanley Kramer, depicted the Scopes Trial | Scopes " Monkey Trial " of 1925

Tracy did not appear on the screen again until October 1960, with the release of Inherit the Wind, a film based on the 1925 Scopes " Monkey Trial " which debated the right to teach evolution in schools.

Dayton was the site of the Scopes Trial in 1925 dealing with the creation – evolution controversy.

In 1925, the famous Scopes Trial was held in Dayton and, for a period of time, filled the town with hucksters of every description and journalists from around the world.

The case ended on July 21, 1925, with a guilty verdict, and Scopes was fined 100 dollars.

Regular segments featured on the show included Brak's School Daze, Zorak's Horror Scopes, Poets ' Corner, Brak's Monday Ratings Report, The Top 5 Cartoon Countdown ( discontinued in 1997 after the show's slot on Saturday mornings was shortened from an hour to a half hour ), Vacation Spots Around the Universe ( pieced together from clips of Ultra 7 episodes ), Messages from Outer Space ( also pieced together from the aforementioned Ultra 7, and starring the nefarious Hot Dog Men ), Mailbag Day, readings from the Cartoon Planet Storybook, messages from Count Floyd ( Joe Flaherty's local Public-access television cable TV horror movie host from SCTV ; the segments were originally shown on Hanna-Barbera's The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley ), Learning to Talk Italian, Nuggets of Joy from Zorak, Zorak's Helpful Hints, and Cooking with Brak.

* Unertl Optics ( longtime manufacturer of USMC Scout Sniper Scopes ) for a unique SMF knife paired up with each custom 1911 pistol sold.

Its association with the Scopes Trial has led to its addition as a stop along the Southeast Tennessee Religious Trail.

The scene in Judge Snyder's courtroom where Lisa is put on trial for stealing the skeleton is seen as a reference to the 1920s Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, which dealt with issues of separation of church and state and the debate between creationism and evolution.

In 1925 Malone was one of the lawyers who joined with Clarence Darrow to defend John T. Scopes in the famous " Monkey Trial ".

This history of the trial was based on the memoirs of John T. Scopes, the archives of the A. C. L. U., assorted newspaper files, correspondence and interviews with dozens of those present at the trial, books and magazine articles written on trial ( including the official record of the trial in the Rhea County Courthouse ), and a couple of visits to Dayton.

Scopes added to the group: " If you can prove that I've taught evolution and that I can qualify as a defendant, then I'll be willing to stand trial.

Judge John T. Raulston accelerated the convening of the grand jury and "... all but instructed the grand jury to indict Scopes, despite the meager evidence against him and the widely reported stories questioning whether the willing defendant had ever taught evolution in the classroom.

The Christian right has not supported the teaching of evolution in the past, but it does not have the ability to stop it being taught in public schools as was done during the Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, in which a science teacher went on trial for teaching about the subject of evolution in a public school.

When asked about the test case, Scopes was initially reluctant to get involved, but after some discussion he told the group gathered in Robinson's Drugstore, " If you can prove that I've taught evolution and that I can qualify as a defendant, then I'll be willing to stand trial.

The Scopes Trial of 1925 was a Tennessee court case that tested a state law which forbade the teaching of " any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.

However, John R. Neal, a law school professor from Knoxville, announced that he would act as Scopes ' attorney whether Scopes liked it or not, and he became the nominal head of the defense team.

* Unpublished Photographs from 1925 Tennessee vs. John Scopes " Monkey Trial " Found in Smithsonian Archives

Teaching of evolution was effectively barred from United States public school curricula by the outcome of the 1925 Scopes Trial, but in the 1960s the National Defense Education Act led to Biological Sciences Curriculum Study reintroducing teaching of evolution.

The Scopes Trial, which resulted from the teaching of evolution being banned in Tennessee public schools under the Butler Act, took place in Rhea County in 1925.

On July 26, 1925, he drove from Chattanooga to Dayton to attend a church service, ate a meal, and died ( the result of diabetes and fatigue ) in his sleep that afternoon — just five days after the Scopes trial ended.

It included live music, political debates, comedy routines, and some of radio's first broadcasts of sporting events, including the Indianapolis 500 automobile race, and a live broadcast of the 1925 Scopes Trial from Dayton, Tennessee.

Ryskind wrote skits including a satire of President and Mrs. Calvin Coolidge, and a parody of the Scopes Trial, which was dropped from the show after William Jennings Bryan died.

It was founded in the aftermath of the 1925 Scopes Trial to establish an institution of higher education that would teach from a Christian worldview.

During the Scopes Trial in 1925, William Jennings Bryan expressed the wish that a school might be established in Dayton, " to teach truth from a Biblical perspective ".

Writer David S. Cohen had the inspiration for the episode after visiting the American Museum of Natural History, and decided to loosely parallel themes from the Scopes Monkey Trial.