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Article: Time trip.(radio adaptation of Orson Well's science fiction novel "The War of the Worlds" caused mass panic when it aired in 1938)
- Article from:
- Current Events, a Weekly Reader publication
- Article date:
- January 30, 2004
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* On October 30, 1938, Martians invaded Earth---or at least thousands of Americans thought they did. That night, people gathered around their radios, as people today gather around their televisions, to tune in to a popular program on CBS Radio. The show that night was a dramatization of The War of the Worlds, a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells about an invasion from Mars. Actor and director Orson Welles (above) and his theater group produced the show, which aired coast to coast.
* In adapting the novel for a radio drama, Welles made an important change: The play was written and performed so that it sounded like a live news broadcast about an alien invasion. ...