Orson 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. Despite
his age, Welles had been in radio for several years, most notably
as the voice of “The Shadow” in the hit mystery program of the
same name. “War of the Worlds” was not planned as a radio
hoax, and Welles had little idea of how legendary it would
eventually become.

The show began on Sunday, October 30, at 8 p.m. A voice
announced: “The Columbia Broadcasting System and its
affiliated stations present Orson Welles and the Mercury
Theater on the air in ‘War of the Worlds’ by H.G. Wells.”

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 ventriloquist
Edgar Bergen and 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.

The radio play was extremely realistic, with Welles employing sophisticated sound effects and his actors doing an excellent
job portraying terrified announcers and other characters. An
announcer reported that widespread panic had broken out in
the vicinity of the landing sites, with thousands desperately
trying to flee.

George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985)

Mannix is a detective television series that ran from 1967 to 1975
on CBS. It was created by Richard Levinson and William Link, and
developed by executive producer Bruce Geller. The title character,
Joe Mannix, is a private investigator played by actor Mike Connors.

Mike Connors (Krekor Ohanian)
(August 15, 1925 – January 26, 2017) 

Connors died in Tarzana, California, at the
age of 91 on January 26, 2017, a week after
being diagnosed with leukemia.

Mannix and Peggy Fair (Gail Fisher)

Black Tuesday hit Wall Street in 1929 as investors trade 16,410,030 shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions
of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors, and stock
tickers ran hours behind because the machinery could not
handle the huge volume of trading. In the aftermath of Black
Tuesday, America and the rest of the industrialized world spiraled downward into the Great Depression.

Jerry Lee Lewis (September 29, 1935 – October 28, 2022)

Jerry Lee Lewis, the flamboyant rock ‘n’ roll founding father,
swaggering country shouter and 2005 Grammy Lifetime
Achievement Award honoree, died Friday.

Lewis died of natural causes at his home in DeSoto County,
Mississippi, south of Memphis.

On October 26, 2022, news outlets falsely reported that Lewis
died.