Part 1

In the summer of 1925, the run-down Appalachian town of Dayton, Tennessee, played host to one of the most famous trials in history, pitting the former Secretary of State and 3-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan against the notorious criminal defence lawyer Clarence Darrow over the question of whether a local schoolteacher would have to pay a fine.

But how did they get to this point? This episode focuses on the rise of anti-evolution sentiment in the Early-20th-Century USA, that led to the passage of the Butler Act in Tennessee, banning public schools from teaching that humans evolved from apes.

Part 2

With the ACLU planning to challenge the Butler Act in court, the Dayton businessman George Rappleyea sees an opportunity to put his town in the spotlight.

Part 3

John Thomas Scopes, a schoolteacher from Dayton, Tennessee, goes on trial, accused of illegally teaching his students the Theory of Evolution. With the eyes of the nation and even the world turned to Dayton, Tennessee, notorious defence attorney Clarence Darrow interrogates an expert witness on the question of the taxonomic classification of whales.