The 10th in 1925 featured the start of the trial of John Scopes, an inexperienced high school science teacher. Scopes had been charged with teaching evolution (instead of intelligent design). When Clarence Darrow had finished the People’s closing argument, Judge John T. Ralston, with a sense of resignation, inexplicably called the case to a halt, refusing to allow the defense to make a closing argument. It took the jury all of eight minutes to find Scopes guilty and he was fined $100, which Scopes’ lead attorney, William Jennings Bryan gallantly offered to pay.

On this date in 1938, Howard Hughes, a man who proved that it is indeed possible to have too much money, completed an airplane flight around the world that had taken 91 hours