The War of the Worlds aired as a radio broadcast on this date (October 30) in 1938. It was a Halloween episode
on The Mercury Theater on the Air. It was mistaken as reality by a surprisingly
large number of people. It was a case of fiction being misunderstood as reality
because of the way it was broadcast. It set a record for misunderstanding
fiction for truth in media broadcasts that stood unmatched before being
eclipsed in recent years by Fox News.
