Posted on 08/13/2019 8:14:31 PM PDT by Perseverando
He was reading the script of a 1938 radio drama based on the novel The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, who died AUGUST 13, 1946.
Herbert George Wells was from an impoverished lower middle class family. He failed as a draper and chemist assistant before going into literature.
H.G. Wells wrote many best-selling science fiction novels, such as:
The Time Machine, 1895;
The Island of Doctor Moreau, 1896;
The Invisible Man, 1897;
The War of the Worlds, 1898;
The First Men in the Moon, 1901.
H.G. Wells space novels inspired the imagination of Robert H. Goddard (1882-1945).
Goddard remembers, that as a 16-year-old boy in 1899, after reading Wells' space stories, he climbed a cherry tree on his family's farm, gazed at the stars, and dreamed of how to reach them.
Goddard went on to become the "father of modern rocketry."
Wernher von Braun acknowledged his debt to the Robert Goddard:
"Goddard's rockets ... may have been rather crude by present-day standards, but they blazed the trail and incorporated many features used in our most modern rockets and space vehicles."
President Ronald Reagan referred to Goddard and Wells in an address at the National Space Club, March 29, 1985:
"Dr. Goddard once wrote a letter to H.G. Wells ...
'There can be no thoughts of finishing, for aiming at the stars ... is a problem to occupy generations ... There is always the thrill of just beginning ...'"
Reagan added:
"Personally, I like space. The higher you go, the smaller the Federal Government looks."
In The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells wrote how Martians were finally defeated by simple bacteria:
(Excerpt) Read more at myemail.constantcontact.com ...
But now the crime and toxic waste will get them.
In 1898 H.G. Wells wrote a short story called “The Man Who Could Work Miracles” . It was made into a movie in 1936 and is one of my favorites.
My father was talking about this a few months back. He was young’n and recalls his mother and father panic when they heard it live on the radio.
They left the house and went to their church.
Martians in NJ??
Would anyone notice?
Would anyone notice?
_____________________________
Maybe. There are A LOT of aliens in New Jersey.
From south of the border, that is.
My parents in California said no one was in a panic. IMHO the impact has been way overblown, and mostly among those on the east coast. So much do that when years later my folks heard on the radio that Pearl Harbor was attacked they thought it was a hoax at first.
Rather dark IIRC. Not a particularly positive view of the human spirit.
My father was in college at the time and remembered the broadcast. People hadn’t experienced a broadcast hoax before it really did create panic.
VERY few people even thought it was real, much less panicked.
“Far fewer people heard the broadcast — and fewer still panicked — than most people believe today. How do we know? The night the program aired, the C.E. Hooper ratings service telephoned 5,000 households for its national ratings survey. ‘To what program are you listening?’ the service asked respondents. Only 2 percent answered a radio ‘play’ or ‘the Orson Welles program,’ or something similar indicating CBS. None said a ‘news broadcast,’ according to a summary published in Broadcasting. In other words, 98 percent of those surveyed were listening to something else, or nothing at all, on Oct. 30, 1938. This miniscule rating is not surprising. Welles’ program was scheduled against one of the most popular national programs at the time — ventriloquist Edgar Bergen’s Chase and Sanborn Hour, a comedy-variety show.”
I thought it was Iowa.
What are democrat candidates doing in NJ?
“Welles’ program was scheduled against one of the most popular national programs at the time — ventriloquist Edgar Bergen’s Chase and Sanborn Hour...”
I’m guessing being a ventriloquist on a radio show was easier than on T.V.?
Actually - it must have been REALLY good. At least on TV you’ll get viewers that want to be amazed at the skill of it. On radio - it was just “two” guys talking back and forth.
What the HELL is that from??
Scary looking creatures.
Bergen was his own cast of characters (as was Mel Blanc).
Now a MIME on the radio would be something...
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