On October 30, 1938, 23-year-old Orson Welles and his radio program, Mercury Theatre on the Air, broadcast “War of the Worlds.” Their fictional radio news bulletins about a Martian invasion panicked many and made Welles famous.

(Click here to watch the entire PBS American Experience documentary about the “War of the Worlds” broadcast.)

“It was the day before Halloween, October 30, 1938. Henry Brylawski was on his way to pick up his girlfriend at her Adams Morgan apartment in Washington, D.C.

As he turned on his car radio, the 25-year-old law student heard some startling news. A huge meteorite had smashed into a New Jersey farm. New York was under attack by Martians.

‘I knew it was a hoax,’ said Brylawski, now 92.

Others were not so sure. When he reached the apartment, Brylawski found his girlfriend’s sister, who was living there, ‘quaking in her boots,’ as he puts it.

The beginning of the Internet is the story of two large computers, miles apart, sending the message: “LO.” The world has never been the same.

In the late 1960s an experimental network of four computers called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) was commissioned by the U.S. government. The computers were located at UCLA, SRI International (then known as Stanford Research Institute), UC Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah. ARPANET evolved into the network of computer networks we know as the Internet.

On October 29, 1969, the first message was sent between two ARPANET computers. They tried to type in “LOGIN,” but the computers crashed after the first two letters.

UCLA’s Leonard Kleinrock, who was part of the team that first connected the ARPANET computers, is interviewed in this KTLA-TV story. (Here is a link to another story about the first ARPANET connection.)

“The breakthrough accomplished that night in 1969 was a decidedly down-to-earth one.

“I love to write. But it has never gotten any easier to do and you can’t expect it to if you keep trying for something better than you can do.”

Ernest Hemingway, 1959

Author and journalist Ernest Hemingway received the Nobel Prize for literature on October 28, 1954.

Listen to his acceptance speech:

Ernest Hemingway was a reporter for the Kansas City Star from October 1917 to April 1918.

In 1999, the newspaper’s website created a special section in honor of the 100th anniversary of his birth. This included old stories, various links, anecdotes, and a story titled, “Of ‘Star Style’ and a reporter named Hemingway.”

“And into the midst of The Star staff, in late 1917, came a youth who, when he could get away with it, wore a red and black checkered hunting shirt to work. Old timers frowned on such dress.

But the young reporter worked outside the office most of the time.

On October 27, 1959, the CBS News documentary series, “CBS Reports,” premiered.

Screenshot from “CBS Reports” documentary

The most memorable program from the series may have been the 1960 documentary, “Harvest of Shame.”

“’CBS Reports’ was a documentary program series inaugurated on October 27, 1959, in the aftermath of the quiz show scandals. Executive producer Fred Friendly (Edward R. Murrow’s colleague on the ‘See It Now’ series) once suggested that the program was an attempt by CBS to undo the damage caused by the quiz show scandals and the resulting investigations. Friendly, who was executive producer for the new program later became the president of CBS News.

“’CBS Reports’ continued as a regular series for seven years, producing 146 hour-long investigative documentaries….Some shows caused controversy; many achieved critical acclaim.”

— “Encyclopedia of Television News”

Screenshot from “CBS Reports” documentary

Here is a link to excerpts from the “Harvest of Shame” documentary. Read more

There have been news stories about rockets since the earliest newspapers, but reports about the use of former German V-2 rockets after World War II marked the beginning of space news as we know it today.

And what better example of early space news than the October 24, 1946 Universal newsreel story about the first photos from space.

Screenshot from 1946 newsreel

“On October 24, 1946, not long after the end of World War II and years before the Sputnik satellite opened the space age, a group of soldiers and scientists in the New Mexico desert saw something new and wonderful — the first pictures of Earth as seen from space.

The grainy, black-and-white photos were taken from an altitude of 65 miles by a 35-millimeter motion picture camera riding on a V-2 missile launched from the White Sands Missile Range. Snapping a new frame every second and a half, the rocket-borne camera climbed straight up, then fell back to Earth minutes later, slamming into the ground at 500 feet per second.

The iPod, Apple’s hard disk-based digital audio player, was introduced by Steve Jobs on October 23, 2001.

“‘With iPod, Apple has invented a whole new category of digital music player that lets you put your entire music collection in your pocket and listen to it wherever you go,’ said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. ‘With iPod, listening to music will never be the same again.’”
– An excerpt from the original Apple iPod press release

Screenshot from iPod introduction video, 2001

“Now, with the introduction of the sleek little iPod, a $399 personal digital-music player, Steve has finally built a widget. About the size of a pack of cigarettes, the iPod is more than just a portable sound machine, however. It’s a new kind of gadget that has the potential to change how we think about personal audio-entertainment gizmos, much as Sony’s first pocket-sized transistor radio did in 1958, and the Sony Walkman portable stereo tape player did 20 years later.

At 7 p.m. on October 22, 1962, in a televised speech to the nation, President John Kennedy announced the discovery of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba.

According to the JFK Library, “for thirteen days in October 1962 the world waited — seemingly on the brink of nuclear war — and hoped for a peaceful resolution to the Cuban Missile Crisis.”

Screenshot from National Archives film, 1962

CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer remembers the Cuban Missile Crisis:

The following description of Kennedy’s speech comes from the Paley Center. (UPI has posted examples of its original Cuban Missile Crisis stories.)

“After learning that the Cubans, with the aid of the Soviets, were building bases for medium — and intermittent-range ballistic nuclear missiles that would have the capability of reaching most of the United States, President Kennedy requested television time from all three of the broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) for 7:00 pm on Monday, October 22.

October 21, 1962 was the last day to visit the Seattle World’s Fair. In case you missed it, here is a quick look back.

This TV commercial invites us to the fair with the line, “Welcome to the future and all the wonders of the 21st Century.”

The Seattle Times published a special souvenir edition for the World’s Fair in 1962. Fifty years later the newspaper pulled out an old copy and described the fair once again.

“Yes, Seattle was one swaggering city of Space Age superlatives when it put on the 1962 World’s Fair.

The excitement and hype had been building for years when The Seattle Times on April 8, 1962, published a 152-page, six-section souvenir edition dedicated to the World’s Fair. The sections were packed with stories brimming with civic optimism and statements of superiority.

And why not?

This remote outpost in a rainy corner of the country was booming.

In addition to anchoring the CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite also hosted a documentary series called “The 20th Century” that was succeeded by another program titled, “The 21st Century.” The original show premiered on October 20, 1957.

Here is one of the most interesting segments from these two programs. It aired in 1967. Cronkite imagined the future of online news and the ability to work at home on a “computerized communications console.”

The program, “The 20th Century,” is described in the following excerpt from the Archive of American Television. “The 21st Century” began in 1967, which is when the segment on computerized communications was broadcast.

“From the one-hour premiere episode ‘Churchill, Man of the Century’ (20 October 1957) to its last episode The 20th Century unit produced 112 half-hour historical compilation films and 107 half-hour ‘originally photographed documentaries’ or contemporary documentaries. Narrated by Walter Cronkite, the series achieved critical praise, a substantial audience, and a dedicated sponsor, The Prudential Insurance Company of America, primarily with its historical compilation films.