Short answers, pulled from the story.
The War of the Worlds was first published in hardcover in 1898 by William Heinemann. It was serialised before that in Pearson's Magazine in the UK and Cosmopolitan in the US in 1897. The 1924 Atlantic edition is considered the definitive text used for reprints.
Wells cited several inspirations, including the catastrophic effect of European colonisation on the Aboriginal Tasmanians and his brother's idea about superior beings dropping from the sky. His science training under Thomas Henry Huxley, a major Darwinist, and contemporary astronomical speculation about life on Mars also shaped the novel.
The Martians are killed by earthly bacteria, to which they had no immunity. The narrator discovers them dead when he approaches a stationary fighting machine on Primrose Hill in London. The novel closes on the recognition that Earth remains vulnerable to a future invasion.
The 1938 radio broadcast, narrated and directed by Orson Welles and presented as a live news programme set in New Jersey, caused a sensation and convinced part of the general public that a real Martian invasion was underway.
Wells placed the technologically superior British Empire in the position of a colonised people by having Martians with even more advanced technology invade the English home counties. Some historians argue Wells wrote the novel to encourage readers to question the morality of imperialism, and Wells himself connected it to the fate of the Aboriginal Tasmanians under European colonisation.
As of 2025, The War of the Worlds has inspired eight films. The first, produced in 1953 by George Pal and directed by Byron Haskin and starring Gene Barry, won the Academy Award for special effects. Steven Spielberg directed a version starring Tom Cruise in 2005, and a third adaptation directed by Rich Lee and starring Ice Cube was released in 2025.