On Jan. 21, 1925, Representative John Washington Butler introduced legislation in the Tennessee House of Representatives that called for a ban on the teaching of evolution.

The proposed law, known as the Butler bill, would prohibit 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.”

in July 1925, the Scopes trial also known as the “Monkey Trial,” began, causing a firestorm of divisive news across the nation. The trial lasted just a week, but the questions it raised are as divisive now as they were back then.