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)
The Mongol conqueror Ghengis Khan (Temüjin Borjigin) died on this day in 1227.
Tennessee ratified the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on this day in 1920. The Amendment guaranteed the right of all women in America to vote.
James Meredith graduated from the University of Mississippi on this day in 1963. He was the first black man to accomplish this feat.
James Howard Meredith turned 85 in June.
Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial novel "Lolita" was published on this day in 1958.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (April 22, 1899 – July 2, 1977)
Actor and director Robert Redford founded the Sundance Film Festival. He starred in classics such as All the President’s Men (1976), The Sting (1973), and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). His directorial debut, Ordinary People (1980) received the Academy Award for Best Picture and earned him the Academy Award for Best Director.
Robert Redford as seen in season 3, episode 81 of The Twilight Zone (‘’Nothing in the Dark”). It first aired January 5, 1962.
On this day in 1994, The U.S. Figure Skating Association stripped Tonya Harding (left) of the 1994 national championship and banned her from the organization for life for an attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan (right).
Nancy Kerrigan just after the attack.
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne(June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010)
Twentieth-century African-American singer and actress Lena Horne famously sang "Stormy Weather," won a Grammy Award for a 1981 album entitled Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, and appeared in film versions of The Wiz, Broadway Rhythm, and Ziegfeld Follies.
Horne continued recording and performing sporadically into the 1990s, disappearing from the public eye in 2000. Horne died of congestive heart failure on May 9, 2010, at the age of 92.
The first copies of the classic vampire novel Dracula, by Irish writer Bram Stoker, appeared on the shelfs in London bookshops on this day in 1897. It has been assigned to many literary genres including vampire literature, horror fiction, gothic novel, and invasion literature. Dracula has spawned numerous theatrical, film, and television interpretations.
Abraham "Bram" Stoker (November 8, 1847 – April 20, 1912)