Inherit the Wind is a play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee, which opened on Broadway in January 1955,
and in 1960 a Hollywood film was based on the play. The play's title comes from Proverbs 11:29, which in the King James Bible reads:

He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind:
and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart

Inherit the Wind is a fictionalized account of the 1925 Scopes Trial (the "Monkey" Trial), which resulted in Scopes's conviction for teaching Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to a high school science class, contrary to a Tennessee state law that mandated the teaching of a form of creationism. The fictional characters of Matthew Harrison Brady, Henry Drummond, Bertram Cates and E.K. Hornbeck correspond to the historical figures of William Jennings Bryan, Clarence Darrow, John Scopes, and H.L. Mencken, respectively.

Despite numerous similarities between the play and history, the play was not intended as a documentary-drama about the Scopes trial, but as a warning about the evils of McCarthyism, which some see as one of the darkest moments in American history. The play has been hailed as one of the great American plays of the 20th century, and its themes of religious belief, religious tolerance, and freedom of thought resonate down to the present day.

The play is the basis of a 1960 Hollywood film of the same name, starring Spencer Tracy (Drummond), Fredric March (Brady), Gene Kelly (Hornbeck), Dick York (Cates), Harry Morgan (Judge), Donna Anderson (Rachel Brown), Claude Akins (Rev. Brown), Noah Beery Jr. (Stebbins), Florence Eldridge (Mrs. Brady), and Jimmy Boyd. It was adapted by Nedrick Young (originally as Nathan E. Douglas) and Harold Jacob Smith (Howard), and directed by Stanley Kramer.