Thursday, July 21, 2011

TODAY IN HISTORY

JULY 21
1861:Confederate Col. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson earns his famous nickname, holding back advancing Union troops at the First Battle of Bull Run near Manassas, Va. The Confederacy claims a victory in the first major engagement of the Civil War, much to the shock of picnic-goers from Washington, who came to watch what they expected to be a Union rout.

1873: Jesse James and the James-Younger gang make off with about $3,000 after holding up and derailing a Rock Island Railroad train near Adair, Iowa. Engineer John Rafferty is the lone victim of one of the earliest train robberies in the American West.

1925: Despite being represented by famous defense attorney Clarence Darrow, high school biology teacher John Scopes is found guilty of violating Tennessee's Butler Act by teaching evolution in school, thus concluding the sensational Scopes "Monkey" Trial. On appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court, Scopes' conviction will be overturned, yet the anti-evolution Butler Act won't be repealed until 1967.
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