WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Sept. 6-12: Uncle Sam, Secret Bombings, and Piggly Wiggly

Episode Date: September 6, 2026

Join Ava and Alessia as they dive into the history of secret WWII missions, the creation of Piggly Wiggly, and more.

Welcome to This Week in History with Ava and Alessia, your one-stop shop for all things history. Welcome to This Week in History. I'm Ava. And I'm Alessia. We're back this fall with Season 2 of the show. Each week we chat about two events from American, World, Military, and Pop Culture History. Then we'll play guests that year, the game where we take turns trying to stump each other with random historical dates. Alessia took the trophy last season, but we'll see how it goes. this time around. First up, let's talk about what happened in American history this week. Ava, what's your first event? On September 8th, 1974, President Gerald Ford granted former President

Richard Nixon full pardon for all of his crimes. Wow. I.e. Watergate, which was wild. Anyway, so Ford granted Nixon a full presidential pardon for any crimes that he may or may not have committed while being president of the United States, including the Watergate scandal. But for those of you who are not familiar with Watergate, it was this absolutely massive political blowup. And pretty much a donor financed political espionage operation against the Democratic National Committee headquarters located at the Watergate complex building in D.C. That was later covered up. Located in D.C., that was later covered up like a lot of things in the 70s were Cough-C., the Maillai Massacre. Nixon was able to destroy pretty much all of the evidence and bribe all of the important people in the situation.

And after he won the re-election to the presidency, the cover began to fail. And funny enough, I just found this interesting. Nixon's transition funds for returning to civilian life after being, hey, you're not president anymore, was reduced from $850,000 in the 70s, which is like a ton of, today to $200,000 in light of his, quote, resignation and disgrace for the presidency. But that's still a decent amount of money. That's a pretty good going away package, in my opinion. After Nixon resigned, the impeachment case was dropped, but Nixon was still answerable to the state and federal law.

And Ford tried to get Nixon to sign a statement of contrition. Nixon refused. And Ford eventually agreed to give him a full pardon. Ford stated that he wanted to end the, quote, American Trump. tragedy and heal national divisions rather than subject the whole country to a prolonged trial. And after Ford left the presidency, he remarked that granting an acceptance of a presidential pardoned pardoned implies and admits the guilt of the pardoned party, and he was by no means exempting Nixon from guilt, just punishment, which I still find interesting.

But you can listen to a clip of the official pardon right now. And by these presents do grant. a full free and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States, which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed. So the public absolutely hated this, as you can probably guess, and the pardon permanently damaged Ford's political career and approval ratings. And the pardon is one of the most probable reasons for why Ford was not reelected in 1976. That checks out.

Mm-hmm. If you do something super big and unpopular like that might not help your re-election. Alessia, what do you have for American history? I have September 7th, 1813, so quite a bit before. The phrase, Uncle Sam, which we all know in love, or maybe love, is used to describe the U.S. government for the first time. Interesting. I totally thought that was later, but that's super cool. The character that we see on posters and in sayings, that can.

came about in the War of 1812. Very cool. Love that guy. I had no idea it was such an old concept. Yeah, I totally thought it was like maybe World War one, maybe Spanish American War. He is now the poster child of July 4th. Mm-hmm. He's on everything.

The commercialization of American holidays has really gotten just that far. Love that. Let's move on to world history now. Ava, what do you have? Okay, so this is a little bit of my effect. fashion history niche coming out, but in September 10th of 1898, Empress Cece of Austria was killed. She was assassinated, right? Yes.

She didn't die until like a little bit after the event happened. It wasn't immediate or anything, but the whole story of it is crazy. But her name isn't actually Cece. It was just a nickname that I think is actually really cute. But her real name is Elizabeth Amelie Eugenie. And Cece was the nickname. She was the empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary from 1854 to 1898. And when she was very young, she married her first cousin, the Emperor Franz Joseph I first.

She was 16. 16? 16. I guess that was normal back then. Still weird. I could not. 16 year old me could not. It's also her cousin.

Yeah. There's a lot of. There's many weird things. We love when geopolitics determines marital relationships. It's the best. The marriage between the two of them immediately put her in the Habsburg court pretty much as soon as she got there. And she hated every second of it because during all of her childhood she had been allowed a lot more freedom and less structure. Like she spent time in the garden.

She did like physical activity like you might not consider it sports today, but it was sporting back in the day. But the Habsburg court was not like that at all. It was super formal, super strict. she ended up having two daughters and one son, which eased the court's distaste for her because she was so informal and lack discipline or whatever. She became the fashion icon of the 19th century. So if you have watched that one edition of Phantom of the Opera, I think it was maybe the 80s. But Christine Dyer and the think of me scene has this like beautiful white dress and there's like diamond stars in her hair and it's all like trailing down. There's a massive train, and it's just stunning and sparkly and gorgeous.

Whoa. It's really strikingly similar and almost exactly the same from a distance, at least, as one of Empress Cece's gowns and her most reproduced portrait of her. So that's just a fun little tidbit. That is so cool. Yeah. I had no idea she was a fashion icon. Mm-hmm.

She's super cool. Yeah, you should totally like look her up. She's awesome. but Cece's health began failing after the birth of her son Rudolph and she spent most of her time in Hungary, which made her a lot closer to the Hungarian people and they absolutely loved her. But the Habsburg court didn't like that she was spending all her time in Hungary and not in Austria. And then she had a lot of other family issues come up and that just absolutely killed her mental, emotional, physical health. but on a trip that she took in 1898,

she was stabbed to death by a man named Luigi, who was an Italian anarchist. He actually stabbed her a singular time with a kind of dagger that was almost like a super thin needle. And the wound actually broke one of her ribs and punctured her lung and her heart, but it was such a small wound that it took more than the instant. to kill her. That's terrifying. Yeah. But she was greatly mourned and is still considered one of like the most

beloved rulers in Austrian history. And she was also the longest reigning Austrian empress in history, which is another cool little tidbit. Alessia, what do you have for world history? For world history, I have September 12th, 1943. So we're jumping 45 years ahead. And this is a little bit of is when German paratroopers land in a mountain in central Italy and rescue Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from his imprisonment there. The Befriung of Dutsche. The Deutsche Wauzexite a series of off-namesh, that from this world-guishishitly in touch German are made. A group of the off-befeel of the Fuhrers to the Befriungesia-Enged of the Arbruzs.

This is after the Italians have signed the armistice, they are officially out of the war. But Mussolini has been imprisoned and there are still some fascist groups working in Italy. And ultimately, Hitler and the Nazis wanted to free Mussolini and claim that Italy was still one of their allies. So they actually used paragliders to go land on this mountain. I guess they jumped out of the plane and used these paragliders to get to this mountain. And they didn't face any resistance once they got there. The Italian guards were just like, forget this. Go ahead.

We don't want to deal with this. So that was kind of typical, I guess. Especially since they were already out of the war, they didn't want to be killed guarding a terrible person. But I think it's just insane that the use of paragliders. At that high. Yeah, it's just very cool, though. It's one of the coolest stories to come out of World War II in my opinion.

But that is super cool. I would never have expected something like that for a rescue mission. If you're just tuning in, this is this week in history with Ava and Alessia on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Let's do some more military history now. Ava, what do you have for that category? Speaking of World War II, we're going to jump to September 9th, 1942. And I thought this event was just super cool because I'd never heard about it before. But did you know that the mainland United States got bombed by Japan, not

once, but twice. Whoa. And like, no one talks about it. I'll just get into it. Go for it. So the first one happened on September 9th, 1942 in the wake of increasing tensions between the U.S. and Japan after Pearl Harbor. And the Japanese decided, you know what, we'll firebomb the U.S. That'll be great. And they tried. So they sent Japanese submarines off the coast of Oregon and launched a modified plane that could somehow fit on the top of the submarine and then take off from the deck of the sub.

And this plane was equipped with two fire bombs and the mission was to start a forest fire around Mount Emily in one of the national forests in Oregon. But the Japanese didn't take into consideration the weather and all of the other environmental factors at the time. And when they chose to do this bombing, it was particularly wrong. rainy season and the fire lookouts were super well-staffed. So a small fire was created, but it was put out

very, very quickly. So it was a very ineffective fire bombing. But yeah, I never would have thought of people starting a forest fire to get the attention taken off of the war. That's just a really interesting strategy that I haven't seen before. And this was the first time that the U.S. was bombed by an enemy aircraft in all of history. And the Japanese decided to try it again a few years later on May 5th, 1945, and they sent hydrogen balloons to the U.S. to again start forest fires, so it wasn't really bombing. It was just they were going to blow up their planes in the forest, still in Oregon. But the plan failed and didn't take any American lives immediately.

But there was this lady named Elise Mitchell, and she was with five. children in her neighborhood. I guess she was babysitting them or something. It's not super clear, but they were in the woods like playing around and they found an unexploded balloon and they were going to take it back into town. And when they tried to drag it out of the woods, it exploded and all six were killed. And they were the only known American civilians to be killed in the continental U.S. as a result of the war. That is so sad. Wow. Yeah. But I'd never heard anyone talk about either of those two things before. Yeah, neither have I, which is crazy. It's the only time. Two big military history firsts for America in that span of a total of, what, three years-ish?

Wow. Yeah. But y'all got a two-fer for that one, September and May. Alessia, what do you have for military history? I have September 6 through 11th, technically, of 1814. So we're jumping back to the War of 1812. Love it. And this is when the Battle of Lake Champlain happened and U.S. troops successfully defended Plattsburgh, New York, which is just some random town, along the lake. And they defended against the British forces. This battle was a key victory for America and it really stopped any potential British northern invasion into New York and into really the body of the United States. It kept them outside in Canada.

Just one month before this happened, the British had successfully made it onto American soil and made their way all the way to the White House in D.C. and burned it to the ground. Oh, yeah. Which crazy. The White House we have now is not the original. Shout out Dolly Madison.

You know what you did. We love you. She's the best. But the battle at Lake Champlain stopped enough. incursion from British forces into the U.S. was critical for not losing this war. And the British weren't necessarily trying to overthrow America or get rid of them. They were mostly doing raids into the country. They just wanted to force America to make a treaty and be done with it.

But obviously, that didn't happen. Now, people disagree whether we won this war or not. Technically, I like to say yes. But we're also not biased at all. No. It's up for a debate, though. Let's go to pop culture, a little bit more light-hearted. What do you have, Ava?

Okay, I'm also not biased towards this at all. But y'all know, I love my weird Southern history. So, on September 11th of 1916, the very first self-service supermarket open in Memphis, Tennessee. You may or may not have heard of it before. It's the best little Southern store ever called Pigley Wiggly. My mama taught me how to shop at Piggly Wiggly. We're the original self-service supermarket open in 1916. Pigley Wiggly appreciates my business.

Always down on. Have you ever been to a Piggly Wiggly? I have never been inside a Piggly Wiggly, but the first time I saw it was when we were driving to Shiloh last summer. Oh, yeah. I only saw it in the distance, and it was unreal to me. I couldn't believe that such a place existed. It's fantastic.

It does. It's great. And it has a fantastic history. too. So before Piggly Wiggly existed, prior to September 11th, 1916, customers would give their shopping list to clerks and employees that worked at the grocery stores and those people would do the grocery shopping for the customer.

So you wouldn't actually go through the aisles and pick out what things you wanted or what produce you got. Someone else was paid to do that for you. Now, this guy named Clarence Saunders decided that that system is a complete waste of time in labor, and so he created the self-service grocery shopping experience we now know in love as pigly-wiggly. Everyone he told about his idea said that it would fail because who on earth would want to get their own groceries? And that would also cause a shoplifting problem, right? I mean, it's coming back now, though.

Yeah, that's true. The personal shoppers? Mm-hmm. It's a thing again. Yeah. Except it's online too now. You don't like hand someone on a list. It's just modern.

The modern version. I guess that's right. But I personally like picking out my own produce. Oh yeah, 100%. But that's just me. I know it's not everybody's thing. Everyone who told Saunders that his idea was terrible. Absolutely had the tables turn for them because it was a great success and it changed

the grocery shopping experience worldwide over a little bit of time. But it eventually did. and the store also popularized checkout stands and individual item pricing in addition to self-service, which most stores still use today. Shout out Memphis, Tennessee. That is so cool. Yeah. But with the shoplifting problem, the self-service aspect encouraged enough impulse purchasing

from other customers that it actually offset their losses of shoplifting. Oh my gosh. Saunders did his research on this because he was like, yeah, this could be a problem. but because of that's when advertising started getting super colorful and they had TV ads, newspaper ads, and impulse buying was starting to be more of a thing and he was like, I can capitalize on this. This is great. Wow. Yeah.

Who knew we have Piggly Wiggly to think for our shopping experience? Exactly. And there's still so much lore about it. Like 1932 was the height of the company's success and they had over 2,500 stores in the U.S. Really? And they made over 180. million dollars per year, which in today's money is just shy of $4.4 billion. Whoa.

And Piggly Wiggly's are still in operation in the American South and Midwest, but I do want to guess where their headquarters is? Like, out of curiosity, where would you say it is? Memphis? New Hampshire. What? There's not even a store in New Hampshire, but their headquarters is there. Why are they in New Hampshire?

I tried to find that out. Not really sure. The most random thing I have ever heard. It's so weird. Alessia, what do you have for pop culture history? I have September 7th, 2007. And this is when Rihanna won her very first VMA award for her smash hit umbrella. Love that song.

Which the only reason I've heard that song before this, but the thing that made it makes it really stick out in my brain is the Tom Holland lip sync renditions. Yes. It's so good. Funny. And you just see Zendaya rolling off stage. She, who knows? Maybe that was the moment they fell in love. I don't know.

But here's a little clip of her big hit. Such a bop. I love that song. Rihanna, you're great. It'll be cool forever. It better be. But now, guess what time it is. It's time for everyone's favorite game.

Guess that year. The game where we try to stump each other on random historical facts and see if we happen to know it or forgot from class, which most likely we forgot. Ava, what date do you have for me? Okay, I threw this one in here because there's a high percent chance that you do know this. September 9th of what year was NBC, aka the National Broadcasting Company, formed? Let's go with 10.

You're super close. It's 26. I was almost within 10 years. Yeah. And we've been on a break. This is a good start. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like this is something you would know from Dr. Gurkies class, the first military foundation's class.

Maybe. It depends. Okay. That was two years ago, my dude. On September 12th of what year was the Battle of Marathon? Oh my gosh. This has been on like four exams since I've had that class. You better get it right then.

I can tell you it was in Athens. And I can tell you. what strategy they used. If only that would get you a point and guess that year. Was it 78 BC? No. Way off. Oh, shoot. It was 490. Oh, yeah, I was still

really far off. Yeah. Oops. I'm so sorry, Dr. Gricky. I'll do better, I promise. All right, what do you have for me now? Okay, I'm going to give you... I'm going to give you a choice. Do you want American history or pop culture? Probably American history. I'm not great at home culture. No, you're fine. They're both kind of random.

Okay. I'm probably cooked either way, so. It's okay. Just give it to me. September 9th of what year did California become the 31st state? Okay, well, it has to be after the Mexican-American war. Yes. Okay. Yeah, we kind of need the Treaty of Guadalupe Eidelgo. Exactly. So I have some context here. Let's go east. 1849. You're so close. It's 1850. Okay.

You're so close. I thought it might have been a little really good. The gold rush was before it became a state because they needed the people from the gold rush. You're so right. Yeah. I had a shot on that one. You were really close though. That was impressive.

That was my one chance and I blew it. Have you seen Star Trek? No. Oh. Well, then you might not get this. I'm sorry. If it's when it came out, I might be able to get in the decade. It is when it came out.

On September 6th of World. What year did Star Trek premiere? Because I know it was super popular in the 60s. In the 60s, probably, because that's when it was super popular. I'm going to go 1964. You're super close. 1966. Ah.

Well, we thoroughly embarrassed ourselves with zero points across the board. We'll try again next week. But thanks for tuning in to this week in history, the show where we talk about all things history. See you next week on Radio Free Hills. 101.7 FM.