On this day in 1938, Orson Welles’ "The War of the Worlds" aired on CBS radio. The belief that the realistic radio dramatization was a live news event about a Martian invasion caused panic among listeners.
Welles takes questions from reporters at a press conference the day after the broadcast, on October 31, 1938. He told them that no one connected with the broadcast had any idea it would cause panic.
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985)
On this day in 1963, a bomb explodes during Sunday morning services in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls.
With its large African-American congregation, the 16th Street Baptist Church served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., who once called Birmingham a “symbol of hardcore resistance to integration.” Alabama’s governor, George Wallace, made preserving racial segregation one of the central goals of his administration. Birmingham had one of the most violent and lawless chapters of the Ku Klux Klan.
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On this day in 1950 During the Korean War, U.S. Marines land at Inchon on the west coast of Korea, 100 miles south of the 38th parallel and just 25 miles from Seoul. The location had been criticized as too risky, but U.N. Supreme Commander Douglas MacArthur (below) insisted on carrying out the landing.
General Douglas MacArthur (center) observes the shelling of lightly defended Incheon from the U.S. Navy amphibious force command ship USS Mount McKinley.
Mount Vesuvius erupted killing approximately 20,000 people on this day in 79 AD. The cities of Pompeii, Stabiae and Herculaneum were buried in volcanic ash.
The above Photos of Plaster casts were made from actual victims trapped in the lava flows of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, Italy.
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Florida City: Gary Davis cradles his chihuahua Boo Boo in front of his mobile home in the Goldcoaster Mobile Home Park the morning after Hurricane Andrew.
Washington, DC, was invaded by British forces that set fire to the White House and Capitol on this day in 1814.
An artists depiction of the White House ruins after the conflagration of August 24, 1814.
The planet Pluto was reclassified as a "dwarf planet" by the International Astronomical Union on this day in 2006. Pluto’s status was changed due to the IAU’s new rules for an object qualifying as a planet. Pluto met two of the three rules because it orbits the sun and is large enough to assume a nearly round shape. However, since Pluto has an oblong orbit and overlaps the orbit of Neptune it disqualified Pluto as a planet.
On this day in 1932, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the U.S. non-stop. The trip from Los Angeles, CA to Newark, NJ, took about 19 hours.
