Eight members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox were indicted on charges of having thrown that year’s World Series, in what was dubbed the Black Sox Scandal. Court records suggest that the eight players received $70,000 to $100,000 for losing five games to three. In spite of their eventual acquittal, the accused players—which included Shoeless Joe Jackson, widely regarded as one of the greatest players of his generation—were banned from baseball.

The 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial pitted two of the most skilled orators of the era, William Jennings Bryan (for the prosecution) and Clarence Darrow (for the defense), against each other in a debate over the teaching of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. In March 1925 the Tennessee legislature had declared unlawful the teaching of any doctrine denying the divine creation of man as taught by the Bible. In the end, the teacher John T. Scopes was fined $100 for teaching evolution but was acquitted on appeal. The law was repealed in 1967.

This case involved a controversial murder trial that extended over seven years. The trial resulted from the 1920 murders of F.A. Parmenter, paymaster of a shoe factory, and Alessandro Berardelli, the guard accompanying him. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian anarchists, were arrested for the crime and convicted in 1921. In 1925 a convict named Celestino Madeiros confessed to participating in the crime with the Joe Morelli gang. Repeated attempts for a retrial failed: The Massachusetts Supreme Court refused to overturn the verdict, and the two men, still maintaining their innocence, were sentenced to death and executed in 1927.