“The War of the Worlds”—Orson Welles’s realistic radio
dramatization of a Martian invasion of Earth, was broadcast
on the radio on October 30, 1938.
Welles was only 23 years old when his Mercury Theater
company decided to update H.G. Wells’s 19th-century
science fiction novel The War of the Worlds for national
radio.
It was not planned as a radio hoax, and Welles had little
idea of how legendary it would eventually become.
Sunday evening in 1938 was prime-time in the golden age
of radio, and millions of Americans had their radios turned
on. But most of these Americans were listening to Edgar
Bergen with his dummy “Charlie McCarthy” on NBC and
only turned to CBS at 8:12 p.m. after the comedy sketch
ended and a little-known singer went on. By then, the story
of the Martian invasion was well underway.
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985)
