The War of the Worlds

This is it: the anniversary of the day the Martians landed, or didn’t, depending on your state of mind. And the state was New Jersey, the place, Grover’s Mill. And the perp was Orson Welles.

NPR’s Story Corps has this remembrance of that October 30, 1938 broadcast of Mr. Welles’ Mercury Theatre “War of the Worlds” dramatization, one over which Congress and the FCC got exercised. Read more about fallout from that night here in a Time magazine article from 2008 and enjoy a tribute webcast to the original tonight at 8 p.m. EDT, 7 Central time (link here).