75 years later, the first 40 minutes of this is still terrifying. If you’ve never ever turned the lights out and listened to this, it’s the perfect day to do it.

This broadcast did, after all, change broadcast laws forever and literally scare people to death. It was intended to. They knew that 8 minutes after the hour the more popular program on at that time would break for commercial, so that’s when they landed the martians. Hysteria ensued.

When they told 20-year-old Orson Welles that during the broadcast he replied: “So it’s working. They’re supposed to be scared.”