In a move engineered by the American Civil Liberties Union, high school teacher John T. Scopes admitted to teaching evolution in the small town of Dayton, TN in 1925. For the ACLU, it was a chance to challenge a new Tennessee law that prohibited the teaching of evolution. For Dayton, it was a chance to get on the map. The Scopes Monkey Trial became one of the country's undisputed trials of the century and featured two of the most colorful figures of the time as opposing attorneys: William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow.