Cartoon by Rollin Kirby.

On this day in 1925, the Butler Act became law in Tennessee, making it illegal “to teach 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.” Although the act itself was repealed in 1967, it established the important constitutional principle that state legislators are infallible in matters of faith, morals, and science.