ON THIS DAY: 30 October 1938 – The War of the Worlds radio play caused mass hysteria across America. Twenty-three-year old Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre on the Air, based in New York, adapted H.G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds into a series of fake news bulletins describing a Martian invasion of … Read more
ON THIS DAY: 23 October 1998 – Several thousand people assembled at Khulile, a small village near Debe Nek in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Nontetha Nkwenkwe, a Xhosa prophetess, healer, and black nationalist, was officially buried 60 years after her death. Nontetha had died 600 miles (960 km) away in 1935 while incarcerated in … Read more
ON THIS DAY: October 15, 1666 – Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary that King Charles II was wearing a vest. This new garment was described by Pepys as ‘a long cassock close to the body, of black cloth, and pinked with white silk under it, and a coat over it…’ This marked the first … Read more