Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics.
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
What happened?
It was read like a news broadcast and many people were unaware it was a fictional reading. The story was re-written for this radio broadcast to sound like a news report and caused mass hysteria.
But the truth is, that's the fictional story. It's all hyperbole and a bunch of newspapers at the time ran with it, to have some fun and sell some papers. There was never any mass hysteria as reported. No one killed themselves thinking aliens were invading, the broadcast was only listened to by 2% of the US, and everyone was aware it was fake. It was a regular type of thing on this radio program.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/war-of-the-worlds/
TIL. I remember my history book one year in grade school mentioning that show and the hysteria it caused.
People thought the world was actually ending