The Night America Trembled The Night America Trembled "The Night America Trembled" is a top-rated television dramatization of the public reaction to the 1938 radio broadcast of "The War of the Worlds" that aired September 9, 1957, as an episode of the CBS series "Studio One". Hosted by Edward R. Murrow, the live documentary play was written by Nelson S. Bond and uses excerpts of the radio script copywrighted by Howard E. Koch. The film centers on the panic created when "The Mercury Theater on the Air" presented a radio adaptation of an 1897 H. G. Wells science fiction novel, "The War of the
The Mercury Theatre on the Air October 30, 1938 and is one of the most famous broadcasts in the history of radio due to the panic which it accidentally caused, after which the Campbell Soup Company signed on as sponsor. "The Mercury Theatre on the Air" made its last broadcast December 4, 1938, and "The Campbell Playhouse" began December 9, 1938. After the theatrical successes of the Mercury Theatre, CBS Radio invited Orson Welles to create a summer show for 13 weeks. The series began July 11, 1938, initially titled "First Person Singular", with the formula that Welles would play the lead in each show. Some