The Scopes Trial over the teaching of evolution in a Tennessee town underscored a deep schism within the American psyche: religion versus science, church versus state, elitism versus populism.

In 1964, national attention turned to Mississippi when 3 Civil Rights activists were abducted and murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. This watershed moment led to the 1965 passage of the Voting Rights Act.

A violent protest against debt collection and taxation practices motivated George Washington to come out of retirement. This was the spark that led to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.