70 Years Ago The War Of The Worlds Was First Broadcast.

Do you realise that this past Halloween marked 70 years to the broadcasting of war of the world with Orsen Wells.

The Show was broadcast as a synthetic news cast causing mass hysteria

The Head lines in the News Papers read as follows:

The article continues

New York, Oct. 31 - (AP) - Thousands of terror-stricken radio listeners throughout the country fled from their homes last night when they tuned in on a series of synthetic news broadcasts which depicted the beginning of an interplanetary war.
The simulated new bulletins, which accompanied a CBS dramatization of H.G Wells fantasy “The War of the Worlds: became so realistic that they sent a wave of mass hysteria across the continent. The broadcast was intended only as fiction.
Explanatory announcements during the program between 9 and 9 p.m were overlooked by thousands who were led to believe that a poison gas expedition has arrived from Mars and was spreading death and destruction over the New York metropolitan area.
Probe Demand Multiply demands for an investigation multiplied in the wake of the broadcast.
Senator Clyde L Herring said he planned to introduce in congress a bill “controlling just such abuses as was heard over the radio last night. XXX Radio has no more right to present programs like that than someone has in kinking on your door and screaming.” he added.
City Manager Paul Morton of Trenton N.J near the locale of the fictional invasion said he would demand an investigation by the federal communication commission with the view of preventing recurrence of what happened….. apartment houses in New York were emptied hurriedly by frantic listener to the program - and by second and third hand accounts that multiplied the impending peril. A woman in Pittsburgh tried suicide, saying “I’d rather die this way than like that.” At a high point in the program the electric power failed at Concrete. Wash. a town of 1000, and the lights went out in most of the homes. Many thought the invasion had reached the west coast. Women fainted and men prepared to take their families to the mountains.
Switchboards Swamped.
Switchboards in newspaper offices and police stations everywhere were swamped with calls from terrified people, many of them weeping. Some reported they could smell the gas and see the flames started by the attackers. People gathered in groups to pray for salvation. All over the metropolitan area….

The piece goes on quite a bit more, but you get the drift.

I had no idea. I used to listen to an LP of the war of the worlds (I think it was probably a different edition than this one was - there was a soundtrack that I can hear in my head as I write this) and I was terrified by it.

I had never heard about this as a radio show.

I am not dissing the people who experienced this terror but I did find the description of the women fainting and the men planing to take their families to the mountains hysterically funny…No doubt this was written by a man…

As I see it the women would probably be the ones planing to take their families to the mountains or god knows where while the men would be standing around dumbfound or maybe fainting…

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