Major Mike | Today in History 10/30 (The War of the Worlds)

Orson Welles broadcasting at CBS Radio in 1938 (© CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images)

(1938) Martian spaceships land in Grover’s Mill, New Jersey

An Intercontinental Radio News bulletin interrupts regularly scheduled music programming, alerting listeners to a meteor strike in rural New Jersey. What follows is nothing less than a Martian invasion cooked up by the fiendishly clever Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre players.

“The War of the Worlds” is an episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles as an adaptation of H. G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds. It was performed and broadcast live as a Halloween episode on Sunday, October 30, 1938 over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. The episode became famous for causing panic among its listening audience, but the scale of that panic is disputed, as the program had relatively few listeners.

First broadcast: Oct 30, 1938
Adaptations: War of the Worlds (1988)

Photo of Orson Welles meeting with reporters in an effort to explain that no one connected with the War of the Worlds radio broadcast had any idea the show would cause panic.
wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(radio_drama)

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(1938) Martian spaceships land in Grover’s Mill, New Jersey.
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1864 | Last Chance Gulch is renamed to something fit for a capital

Four prospectors from Georgia have dubbed a gold-producing site near Prickly Pear Creek in Montana Territory, ‘Last Chance Gulch.’ But three months later, the population has swelled to more than 200 and a more refined name is called for. ‘Pumpkinville’ is dismissed in favor of ‘Helena.’

1974 | Ali and Foreman ‘Rumble in the Jungle’

Former heavyweight boxing champ Muhammad Ali challenges reigning champ George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaïre, for a $5 million purse. In the heavily promoted fight, Ali introduces his ‘rope-a-dope’ style, taking punches against the ropes to wear Foreman down before Ali knocks him out in the eighth round.

1991 | ‘Perfect Storm’ hits peak as a monster storm churns in the North Atlantic

A meeting of two weather systems turns malevolent as Hurricane Grace rotates north off the US Eastern Seaboard and is pulled into a nor’easter moving down from Canada. The resulting monster cyclone packs waves exceeding 100 feet, low pressure of 972 millibars, and 70-mph gales.

Today in History ^10/30/17

George Foreman lands a body punch to Muhammad Ali during the 'Rumble in the Jungle' in Zaire on October 30, 1974 (© AP)

(1974) Ali and Forman 'Rumble in the Jungle'

Former heavyweight boxing champ Muhammad Ali challenges reigning champ George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaïre, for a $5 million purse. In the heavily promoted fight, Ali introduces his 'rope-a-dope' style, taking punches against the ropes to wear Foreman down before Ali knocks him out in the eighth round.

The Rumble in the Jungle was a historic boxing event in Kinshasa, Zaire on October 30, 1974. Held at the 20th of May Stadium, it pitted the undefeated world heavyweight champion George Foreman against challenger Muhammad Ali, a former heavyweight champion; the attendance was 60,000. Ali won by knockout, putting Foreman down just before the end of the eighth round. It has been called "arguably the greatest sporting event of the 20th century". The event was one of Don King's first ventures as a professional boxing promoter.

Start date: Oct 29, 1974
Fighters: Muhammad Ali · George Foreman
Venue: Kinshasa

This is a poster for The Rumble in the Jungle. The poster art copyright is believed to belong to the distributor of the boxing event, the publisher of the boxing event or the graphic artist.