Fifty Broadcasts That Changed History

The Halloween 1938 broadcast of The War of the Worlds put a Sunday-night literary hour on the front page of every newspaper in America and started a permanent argument about what broadcasting can do to an audience. The surviving recording is calmer and cleverer than its reputation: it works because it imitates the news bulletins listeners already trusted.

The night radio discovered it could be believed.

Attached: The Last Train Out2026-08-041h 4m

One Washington station recorded from sign-on to sign-off on 21 September 1939, the day Roosevelt asked Congress to revise the Neutrality Act. Soap operas, farm reports, a ball game and a presidential address, in the order a listener actually heard them.

The single most valuable day of tape in American radio.

Attached: Signal at Midnight2026-08-0421 min

Norman Corwin circled the postwar world with a recorder and came back with ordinary people describing what had happened to them. It is the first great piece of international radio reportage built from voices rather than commentary.

The world, interviewed while the rubble was still warm.

Attached: Dead Air2026-08-0448 min