October 30, 1938
On this date in 1938, acclaimed writer, director, and actor Orson Wells’ Mercury Theatre on The Air broadcast a radio adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel The War of the Worlds, depicting a Martian invasion of New Jersey. The first half of the broadcast was in the form of news bulletin style broadcasts. Listeners who missed the segment introductions that stated the broadcast was a work of science fiction, believed it to be a genuine attack from outer space. It was later discovered that much of the “panic” was exaggerated by print media who may have sought to use the moment in an attempt to discredit radio, then the single biggest rival of newspapers in America.