Answer:
Answer to the first question: Reconstruction ended in 1877.
Answer to the second question: Orson Welles expected the audience to react with excitement and pleasure (Option A), but the public reaction was actually panic and chaos. When questioned, Orson Welles said he expected "nothing unusual" in the public reactions.
Explanation:
First question: Reconstruction is the period in U.S. history (1865–77) after the Civil War during which time the 11 states that had seceded the Union were admitted back into the Union; and it was also a time where many attempts were made to grant equality to the African American population and to undo the legacy of slavery. There were far-reaching changes in political life during the Reconstruction period. At the national level, new laws and constitutional amendments were instituted that changed the federal system and who qualified for American citizenship. In the southern states, there was a lot of activism in favor of building more viable and empowered black communities. Lawmakers passed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution and also forged the Civil Rights Act of 1866. During this period African Americans were allowed to vote and purchase land, seek employment and participate in public life like any other American citizen. Unfortunately, there were later reactions and pushback that began to re-instill the legacy of racism and encroach on the legal and social rights of African Americans again.
Second question: The War of the Worlds was a radio broadcast made in 1938 that has been made infamous because it tricked some of the listeners into believing an alien invasion was actually occurring. It used a "breaking news" format for storytelling in the first part of the broadcast that some did not realize was fictional. The program's use of a news-bulletin format by actor Orson Welles was criticized by many in the media in the aftermath of the public reaction. The story was based on the novel by H. G. Wells called The War of the Worlds (1898). The production team had changed the location names to American towns and cities for the radio broadcast while the original book was set in Europe (Gosling, 2009).
