Today in History, October 30th
On October 30, 1938, Orson Welles's War of the Worlds broadcast spooked radio listeners. Plus the Rumble in the Jungle and Quebec's close vote.
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October 30 is best known for Orson Welles’s 1938 radio version of The War of the Worlds, which convinced some listeners that Martians had landed in New Jersey. The date also saw Muhammad Ali’s “Rumble in the Jungle” win in 1974 and Quebec’s razor-thin vote against leaving Canada in 1995.
The big story: The War of the Worlds hits the airwaves (1938)
It was the night before Halloween, and nobody at CBS meant it as a prank. At 8 p.m. on Sunday, October 30, 1938, Orson Welles, just 23, and his Mercury Theatre began an updated radio version of H.G. Wells’s Martian invasion novel. The trick was the format. The show opened like an ordinary evening of dance music, then kept breaking in with news-style bulletins: explosions on Mars, then a meteor striking a farm in Grovers Mill, New Jersey. A reporter “on the scene” described creatures crawling out of a metal cylinder and attacking with heat rays. Many listeners tuned in late, switching over from a rival NBC program at 8:12, and missed the setup. Some were frightened, though accounts of nationwide hysteria were later judged exaggerated. The Federal Communications Commission looked into the broadcast and found no law had been broken. Welles came out fine. The stunt helped land him a Hollywood contract, and in 1941 he made Citizen Kane.
More events on October 30
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1811 | Jane Austen’s first published novel, Sense and Sensibility, appeared without her name on it. |
| 1864 | Four gold miners who had struck it rich at Last Chance Gulch founded the town that became Helena, Montana. |
| 1905 | Russia’s Nicholas II issued the October Manifesto, promising civil liberties and an elected Duma and ending unlimited autocracy (October 17, Old Style). |
| 1918 | The Ottoman Empire signed an armistice with the Allies aboard HMS Agamemnon, taking it out of World War I. |
| 1948 | A deadly smog over Donora, Pennsylvania, claimed its first victims. About 20 people eventually died. |
| 1961 | The Soviet Union set off the Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated. |
| 1974 | Muhammad Ali knocked out George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire, in the “Rumble in the Jungle” to win back the heavyweight title. |
| 1991 | The “perfect storm” gathered strength in the North Atlantic, raising enormous waves off New England and Canada. |
| 1995 | Quebec voters narrowly rejected separation from Canada, 50.6 percent to 49.4 percent. |
| 2002 | Jam Master Jay, the DJ for hip-hop pioneers Run-DMC, was shot and killed in his recording studio in Queens, New York. |
Born on October 30
- 1735: John Adams, second president of the U.S., born in Braintree, Massachusetts (New Style).
- 1885: Ezra Pound, poet and critic who championed modernist literature, born in Hailey, Idaho.
- 1932: Louis Malle, French film director, born in Thumeries.
- 1960: Diego Maradona, Argentine soccer star counted among the best players ever, born in Lanús.
Keep reading
Sources
- Welles scares nation, History.com
- This Day in History: October 30, History.com
- On This Day: October 30, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- October Manifesto, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Tsar Bomba, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- John Adams is born, History.com
- Ezra Pound, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Louis Malle, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Diego Maradona, Encyclopaedia Britannica
