On the night before Halloween in 1938, a young man named Orson Welles broadcast a radio play that changed America. The War of the Worlds told the story of aliens invading Earth, and Welles made it sound like a real news report. Thousands of listeners panicked, believing Martians had actually landed in New Jersey. The next morning, Welles was famous. Born on May 6, 1915, in Wisconsin, Welles had been a child prodigy who performed in plays at age three and directed his first stage production at sixteen. Hollywood noticed his War of the Worlds stunt and offered him a movie deal with nearly total creative control -- something almost unheard of for a newcomer. Welles used that freedom to make Citizen Kane in 1941, when he was just twenty-five years old. The movie told the story of a powerful newspaper tycoon and introduced camera techniques that filmmakers still study today. Welles shot scenes from low angles to make characters look powerful, and he used deep focus so that everything on screen was sharp and clear. Powerful people in Hollywood tried to stop the film because they believed it was based on real newspaper owner William Randolph Hearst. Citizen Kane earned poor ticket sales at first, but critics later recognized it as a masterpiece. Today, it regularly tops lists of the greatest films ever made, and Welles is celebrated as one of the most creative directors in movie history.