War of the Worlds, 1898
The earliest fictional account of space-based war, the H.G. Wells classic describes a terrifying invasion by Martians on late Victorian England. Though it is technically only about a battle between planets, it laid the groundwork for the many broader stories of interstellar and intergalactic warfare that have followed. The story was famously immortalized in 1938, when the young Orson Welles narrated it in a Halloween eve broadcast on CBS radio. Because the first portion of the broadcast was presented as a series of simulated news bulletins, many listeners believed that an actual Martian invasion was in progress.

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