War of the Worlds 1938 Broadcast

On 30th October 1938, less than 11 months before the outbreak of the Second World War, Orson Welles read out H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds on radio as part of the CBS Radio series The Mercury Theatre on the Air's Halloween special. War of the Worlds is a about a fictitious alien invasion but because the main form of home entertainment at the time other than books and the newspaper was radio, the fictitious alien invasion news report caused a lot of panic by those who tuned into the broadcast too late believing that the book's events were actually happening! The panic was SO BAD that the police had to be called. Despite this, Orson Welles would later act in movies and even direct them!