 | The War of the Worlds
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The Mercury Theatre was an acclaimed New York company founded by John Houseman and a young man by the name of Orson Welles.
In the summer of 1938, CBS radio offered the company an hour long slot in which to broadcast dramatizations of classic books, in the series "The Mercury Theatre on the Air".
The broadcast of "Sunday October 30th" was one that panicked a nation, it was the infamous broadcast of H.G. Wells's "The War of the Worlds". The story was transported from Victorian England to a contemporary setting presented in the form of an ongoing newscast of the Martian invasion.
Listeners that missed the introduction to the broadcast were convinced by the verisimilitude and panicked, some deciding to flee their homes in their cars carrying food and blankets.
Many others who resigned themselves to their inevitable fate and continued to listen learned that they had been convinced by a piece of fiction as the broadcast ended.
It was performed by Orson Welles and The Mercury Theatre Company on Sunday, October 30th, 1938.
