Welles shocks a nation

It’s 70 years to the day since Orson Welles pulled one of the grandest media stunts in history.  His Mercury Theatre radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds was broadcast on 30 October, 1938, and – thanks largely to its faux-news bulletin construction – it convinced swathes of its listeners that an alien invasion was actually taking place (the main headline of the following day’s New York TImes: “Radio listeners in panic, taking war drama as fact”).  I’ve embedded the first ten minutes of the programme below, although you can download the whole thing here.  It’s a great listen, particularly with Halloween just around the corner…