The Aether Zone: The Way It Was, 12 June

1851---Oliver Joseph Lodge---the British physicist who will address light-bearing aether as the wave-bearing medium filling all space and toward the radio transmission he produces between those of Tesla and Marconi, improving Branly's coherer radio wave detector with a kind of trembler dislodging clumped filings and restoring its sensitivity (Wikipedia)---is born in Stoke-on-Trent.

AIRWAVES . . .

1936: FIFTY GRAND---The first known fifty thousand watt radio station begins its experiments in Pittsburgh.

CHANNEL SURFING . . .

1938: DEATH FROM THE DEEP---In one of the best-known old-time radio dramatic episodes, Lamont (Orson Welles) fears a brilliant but disgraced Navy designer may be the designer of a weapon responsible for a series of heretofore-unsolved and deadly shipping disasters, on tonight's edition of The Shadow. (Mutual.)

Margo: Agnes Moorehead. Additional cast: Unknown. Writer: Unknown.

1939: THE WHITE BANNERS---Tasteful adaptation of the 1938 film about a homeless woman (Fay Bainter, reprising her film role) taken in by a kindly family who doesn't know their teenage neighbour (Jackie Cooper, also reprising his film role) is the son she surrendered for adoption after his out-of-wedlock birth, on tonight's edition of Lux Radio Theater. (CBS.)

Additional cast: Lewis Stone, Jean Hainey, Elizabeth Wilbur, Richard LeGrand, Lou Merrill, Ross Forrester, Mary Lansing, Conway P. Coe. Host: Cecil B. DeMille. Writers: Lenore Coffee, Abem Finkel, Cameron Rogers, based on the book by Lloyd C. Douglas.

1949: THE DEAD MAN WALKS---A woman writes the box fearing her father is in some sort of trouble, but Holliday (Alan Ladd) learns he's dead . . . and then alive, only too suspiciously, on tonight's edition of Box 13. (Mutual.)

Sheila: Lurene Tuttle. Suzy: Sylvia Packer. Kling: Edmund McDonald. Additional cast: Alan Reed, Luis van Rooten, Betty Lou Gerson, Frank Lovejoy. Writer: Russell Hughes.

1954: THE COVER-UP---It begins with Barnaby Hoffer wanting to shoot Art Long, usually a man of peace, on sight, which puzzles Matt (William Conrad) before he's cut in a brief scuffle with the man, on tonight's edition of Gunsmoke. (CBS.)

Chester: Parley Baer. Kitty: Georgia Ellis. Doc: Howard McNear. Additional cast: Joseph Kearns, Helen Klee, Paul Savage, Clayton Fuller. Writer: John Meston.

PREMIERING TODAY . . .

1884---William Austin (actor: Jack Oakie's College), Georgetown, British Guiana.
1890---Junius Matthews (actor: David Harum; Gasoline Alley), Chicago.
1893---Evelyn Varden (actress: Easy Aces; This Is Nora Drake; Young Dr. Malone; mr. ace and JANE), Adair, Oklahoma.
1909---Archie Bleyer (bandleader: Arthur Godfrey Time; Arthur Godfrey and His Friends; Casey, Crime Photographer), Corona, New York.
1914---Herbert C. Kenny (singer, with the Ink Spots: The Four Ink Spots; Let's Go Nightclubbing), unknown.
1915---Priscilla Lane (singer: The Fred Waring Show), Indianola, Iowa.
1919---Uta Hagen (actress: The Big Show), Gottingen, Germany.
1924---Dave Parker (actor: The Lone Ranger; The Green Hornet; Challenge of the Yukon), Fresno, California.
1928---Vic Damone (as Vito Rocco Farinola; singer: Saturday Night Serenade; Stars in Khaki 'n' Blue), Brooklyn.