All the Tom Cruise hoopla about the new War of the Worlds movie has me interested in finding out more about the famous "we thought it was true" Welles radio broadcast of 1938. War of the Worlds has the scoop:

Welles and Koch told the story as a series of newsflashes that intruded without warning into what sounded like a perfectly routine program....[and] a great many listeners switched at an inopportune moment from a rival network, which was broadcasting the wildly popular Charlie McCarthy Show. About 10 minutes into this show, a singer would be introduced, and this was the point a lot of listeners would twiddle their dials while waiting for the star of the show to return. Tuning into the Mercury Theater a few minutes late (and thus having missed Welles distinctively sonorous introduction) they found themselves listening to the innocent sounds of "Ramon Raquello and his orchestra", only for the music to be interrupted by the first of a series of increasingly alarming news stories....

See also:

• The Museum of Hoaxes
• National Geographic News
• Wikipedia
• Rotten.com