David the Contributor again. Today is the 84-year anniversary of the original 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds.
If you don’t know War of the Worlds, it’s an alien invasion story from 1898 by H.G. Wells, which then got turned into an hour-long radio play by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre. Lots of Well(e)s going on. There’s a long-running legend that the radio broadcast caused widespread panic across the US, as people tuning in mid-show couldn’t tell that the news-broadcast style of the show was completely fictional. But Orson Welles himself was skeptical that War of the Worlds caused that kind of terror. Nevertheless, there are plenty of clickbait-like newspaper headlines from back in the day completely sold on Welles’ chaos.
You can listen to the original broadcast here. It’s a pretty neat piece of science fiction, and great for the Halloween season. So go get spooky with it!