WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - This Week in History - Nov. 16-22: Pennies, cults, and 50 billion hamburgers

Episode Date: November 16, 2025

Join Ava and Alessia as they talk about the last American penny, Jim Jones' cult, and more.

Welcome to This Week in History with Ava and Alessia, your one-stop shop for all things history. Welcome back to This Week in History. We've got a fun one this week. Ava, let's start off with American History. What's your first date? So I was originally going to talk about how Blackbeard was killed off the coast of North Carolina. But then I saw this thing in the news and I felt like I had to talk about it. As of yesterday, on the day that we're recording the show, but for all of you listeners, on November 12th of 2025, the last pennies were minted in the United States. That's very timely. So the first iteration of the penny was minted in 1787, and they were actually made from melted down barrel bands from the kegs of gunpowder that France sent the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, which is super cool.

But the first official pennies weren't produced until 1793. But the reason why the U.S. Treasury is stopping, or U.S. Mint is stopping the production of the penny is because it cost around four cents to produce one penny. That's so ironic. Extremely. And if they stopped penny productions, according to a 2024 report from the U.S. mint, it would save the U.S. the United States of America would save approximately $85.3 million by not making pennies. Oh yeah, forget about the penny. Yeah.

Get out of here. Three, two, one. Done. All right. The Department of the Treasury and President Trump no longer believe the continued production of the penny is fiscally responsible or necessary to. meet the demands of the American public. And just a little fun trivia fact, the last time a coin

was discontinued in the U.S. was in 1857 with the discontinuation of the half cent. The half cent? The half cent. You didn't buy with that. But I guess in those days, money, there wasn't as bad of inflation, I guess. Like, you could actually

buy things for a cent. But then again, they were worth a lot more back then than they are now. Yeah. Now you can't buy anything with a cent. Half cent would be totally useless. Yeah. I went to a restaurant in Nashville a couple years ago, and they had this display in the front that had their menu from when they opened, like in the 1800s or something. And you could buy a full steak dinner for, I think, eight or nine cents with sides and dessert and appetizer included and drinks. Wow.

Yeah. But now a lot of local store owners are wondering what they're going to do with their physical items. if they still take cash, like, are we just going to have everything round up to the nearest five and use nickels? I guess. Because I know at the store I work at, there's a lot of people that pay in cash still. And they might have to round up. Yeah, I mean, it's always been stupid, though, when things cost $12.99, just make it cost 12 or 13 or $1.50.

Come up with something even. I mean, who wants to deal with all those $0.99 anyways? Yeah. Alessia, what do you have for American history? history on the docket today. So I have a really fun date for us this week. November 19th, 1863 is when Abraham Lincoln gives his Gettysburg address. What a sleigh. Yeah, it's pretty cool. So there was a massive battle in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. So many people died. It's one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. After the battle was over and the dead were being buried, all of these things,

Abraham Lincoln comes and gives a speech to honor them and to talk about how the war is going to go forward, et cetera. It goes down as one of the most famous and most incredible speeches ever given. Which is so true. Everyone knows the lines four score and seven years ago. I had a communications class in high school, which was a total joke. And I remember we had to, one of the things that we could choose to recite from memory was the Gettysburg Address. And I remember that my teacher was sitting in the back. I was talking and he put yogurt in the microwave and he played yogurt in the microwave while you were

reciting the Gettysburg address. Yes. And then he proceeded to eat microwaved yogurt while I was reciting the Gettysburg address. That's vile. I know. I was up there thinking Abraham Lincoln like this really serious speech and then I just see this and I had to try so hard to not laugh. It was an interesting experience. Oh gosh. I would have just started laugh. I would have just started laugh. it was really difficult not to but I also didn't want to fail so true I would have forgotten everything I could feel the words leaving me me let's move on to world history now eva what's the first one so this is something I normally would not have ever thought of but when I was doing research for this episode I just couldn't not select it because it's just frankly cool so on November 16th of 1988, I apologize if I'm pronouncing this incorrectly. Ben-Zer-Butto was elected the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

And this is extremely significant to world history because Buto was the first female leader in a Muslim country in the world's history. She held two non-consecutive terms as the Prime Minister of Pakistan, the first one from 1988 to 1990, and the last from 1993 to 1996. Her father was the head political leader of Pakistan from 1990s. 171 to 1977 until he was deposed and later executed in 1979 and the country was then in a state of martial law under president zia during this period buto studied both at harvard and oxford with focuses in philosophy political science economics and international law and when she returned to pakistan after her father's death she became the leader of her father's party in opposition to zia known as the pakistan people's party and after president zia died in a plane crash In 1988, she became the Prime Minister. Because I was Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's daughter,

I was given a great degree of respect and a great degree of support. And my father's followers saw in me the embodiment of his dreams. So they rallied around me. But it also had to do with Pakistan's liberal tradition. When we were fighting for our independence, women used to come out on the street and demonstrate against the British, who were then part of our subcontinent as the colonial rulers.

So part of it was that Avazulfiqar Ali Porto's daughter, but part of it was also because of this very strong liberal constituency in Pakistan ever since its independence. But due to a wild turn of events that you can read about in your own time, Bouto's brother claimed that she and her husband were guilty of corruption in 1996, and her husband was put in jail, and she was egg. exiled first to London and then to Dubai. Her husband was released in 2004 to join her in exile. She was eventually granted amnesty to return to Pakistan in October of 2007, but in the parade

celebrating her return, there was a suicide attack on her parade caravan. Oh, no. She survived, but many of those gathered to celebrate her return were killed. But in December of the same year, she was assassinated by a similar attack. Dang, that's really sad. Yeah. Alyssa, what do you have for world history? So I have a also kind of sad date. Well, I guess yours ended on a sad note. So this is just going to continue that. Okay.

Yay! Unfortunately. Sorry. I feel like I always pick sad things to talk about. It's okay. So on November 18th, 1978, the mass suicide in Jonestown occurs. And this is when the cult led by Jim Jones, they all gather in their little community. and have you heard the phrase drinking the Kool-Aid?

Yes. This is where that comes from. Really? Yes. Because he decides that he's going to make everyone drink this drink and it's poisoned. Stop it. And if you, almost everyone chooses to drink it and the people who don't are shot and killed. And so it's this mass murder.

I never knew that. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I thought drinking the Kool-Aid was just a term of like following the masses or something. I didn't know it had that dark of a connotation, i.e. mass poisoning. Yeah, it ends really poorly. I can't remember if there were any survivors or not. But basically the drink was mixed with cyanide sedatives, all kinds of random weird things. Yeah, it was all surrounded by armed guards, so you had to.

Why he recruited all these people to just kill them like that? I'm not entirely sure. I don't know if we know. leaders of cults typically aren't normally all the way there he was just sadistic i guess i mean that seems to be kind of the only explanation for that but funny enough there was actually a u.s congressman at this town and i think he was there with a group of journalists and some other random people so this congressman his name is leo ryan and he actually gets attacked with a knife um but he ends up escaping for a little bit at least, and then he, Jones's people, keep going after him and then they get ambushed at an airport or an airstrip type thing to trying to get off out of this place. Yeah. And they get killed. Oh, I don't like that. So there was the congressman and four other people who were murdered as they were trying to get

on the plane to get out of this wacko town. So there were a few survivors of people who managed to run into the jungle while this all of this craziness was happening. Everyone else who was there died. Ah, no, not good. It was really bad. Let's listen to a National Geographic clip now where a survivor talks about Jim Jones.

Jim Jones, he would say, you'll die before you leave here. Fail to follow my advice. You'll be sorry. He'll be sorry. Jim Jones demanded loyalty. He controlled everything. Let's try to maybe do something a bit more uplifting, maybe, potentially, although we're going into military history now. So the odds are not great.

If you're just tuning in, this is This Week in History with Ava and Alessia on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Ava, what do you have? And you would be accurate. The odds are not great, because I'm going to talk about the Mexican Revolution. Oh, yeah, did not go up from there. Okay. Just stay tuned for pop culture because it's a fun thing. That's not sad. For me, at least. On November 20th of 1910, the Mexican Revolution was officially launched. So the revolution began as many revolutions do with the people's concern and general distaste for the elite dictators of their country. And this elite dictator in question was Porfirro Diaz. And he was the president of Mexico at the time, known for enacting policies that favored the wealthy elites.

But in 1910, he announced that he was running for re-election to the presidency. But would you like to guess which re-election this was for him? Like in a numerical first, second, third, et cetera. Like five. It was his seventh re-election. Oh, it's close. Yeah. To the presidency.

That's a lot of re-elections. Cough, cough, cough, dictator. Uh, yeah. But there is this other guy named Francisco Madero. He was known for his liberal idealism and opposition to Diaz. And he decided to also run for the presidency as the leader of a new political group. And I'm going to try to pronounce this correctly. We will see how it goes.

The anti-relectionistas. Close enough. I, deep apology. Anyway, Porfirro Diaz ended up arresting Madero and announced that he had won the re-election himself. Oh, wow. What a nice victory. Yeah, super easy. Just arrest your opponent and then you're fine.

You automatically win. Literally. And after his announcement, Madero was released, but he published a political document whose title I'm not even going to try to pronounce on air. And it was a call to arms against Diaz suggesting a full-scarral. on November 20th that kick-started the Mexican Revolution, which would last for another 10 years. Alessia, what do you have for military history? Is it something a little happier, like a liberation or something? Unfortunately not. It's not the worst, but it's also not super happy. It's definitely better than the last two things.

So November 21st, 1776, George Washington orders General Lee to New Jersey. So this is when Washington tells him to come meet their troops, bring his forces. to gather there. And then I really pick this, it sounds kind of boring, but I really picked this because General Lee is a fascinating character. He's kind of a terrible person. I'm pretty sure he gets, yeah, he gets captured at some point after this, obviously, when he's staying at a potentially bad location.

That's really big, but I don't really want to go into it. But he's basically just staying somewhere he shouldn't have been. and he gets captured by the British and then General Washington has to make a big exchange to get him back and then later at the Battle of Monmouth he doesn't follow Washington's orders he wants to kind of do his own thing and he thinks that he should be in charge rather than Washington because he thinks that he's this big grand war hero from the French and Indian War and it's just not the case and he ends up stalling his troops and not coming to help in the Battle of Monmouth, and then eventually George Washington pulls up and is able to salvage the battle that the Americans should have won

because they were attacking a retreating British force, the rear of it. And because of Lee, they had started to lose. And then when Washington arrives, he's able to lead them to a draw. It's not quite a victory, but it's definitely better than a loss, especially because the American army had been doing pretty poorly up until this point. So it was a much needed, not loss. That's a great way to put that. Mm-hmm.

So after that fun experience in military history, let's go to pop culture, which is bound to be much happier. What do you have, Eva? I can definitely make it a little happier. Well, it's not necessarily like, yay, this fantastic thing happened. just another interesting piece of trivia that I personally find entertaining. So on November 18th of 1963, touchtone telephones were introduced to the U.S. and replaced the rotary dial. No, not the rotary. Touchtone telephones have this really cool way of working. So each digit, as you've probably heard, has a specific sound associated with it. Each of the different sounds

allow a switching center to know what keys are pressed and what numbers to dot. Whereas rotary dialing deciphered what numbers were dialed by measuring the amount of time in between each digit by the little thingy spinning back. But rotary phones still required operators to make long distance calls, and touch tile phones did not. But this was super revolutionary for the time because it takes way less time to dial. There's actually a video I found on YouTube of this little testing booth where you could test how long it took you to rotary dial a number and then to touchtone dial a number. It was really funny. But it also gets rid of the need for an operator, which was wild for the time. However, since it was so revolutionary and such a new piece of technology, it didn't catch on until the 80s.

My grandpa still had a working rotary phone hooked up to the landline in his house until this summer. Oh, my gosh. When we took it out. But it was really fun. I called my dad on it. But here's a clip from the ad from the very first touchtone phone that I just thought was really fun. You like? Yeah, you very much something.

What are you doing? What? Hey, so what are you doing? I'm making a phone call. Oh, it's our new touchtone phone. Haven't you ever seen one? Oh, here, listen, come on. All you have to do is tap out the number.

It's much faster. You hear this? No, come on, listen. This is Touchstone Service, the newest, fastest way to make a phone call. It's available now to most customers in Chicago and the suburbs, and will be extended to other customers as quickly as facilities are available. And that's a very silly way of explaining, buy our new technology. You don't have to spin numbers anymore.

You can just touch them. Alicia, what do you have for pop culture today? So I have a really fun one. On November 20th, 1984, McDonald's makes its 50 billionth hamburger. That's wild. 50 billion. And that was a hot minute ago. That was a long time ago, yeah.

And McDonald's is way more popular now. Can you imagine how many hamburgers they've made now? It's a lot of burgers. It's probably not even countable. No. Well, you probably could if you just took the receipt history, but that would take forever. That's wild, though. What does that say about our consumption habits? So much. I don't really want to question that more than I just did.

Yeah. Let's go to our favorite game now. Everyone's favorite part of the episode, the part of the episode where we probably will embarrass ourselves about if we're able to guess or recall really random dates from this week in history. It's time for. Guess that year. Alessia, do you want to go first? All right. I think the score is still 5'3. I think you're right. I don't think we got any points last week. Yeah, you threw me off with Herman Melville and I threw you off with the Avenue on papacy. Yeah. That was a bit traumatic. It's okay. We're going to do better this week, hopefully.

Ava, oh, wait, you said I could go first, right? Yeah, you're in the lead. You might as well go first. Okay, let me see. It's your right. My right is the leader. Yes. In what year was John Muhammad, the Washington, D.C. sniper convicted. I don't even know who that is, is that bad. I think Washington Sniper, I mean. I don't know what that...

Recent history. I would assume so, but when you tell me Sniper in recent history, all I think of is the movie American Sniper. So it happened in Washington, D.C. I know. He killed a bunch of people. He was an ex-soldier. People were, like, terrified for a while until they caught this guy. 1997?

Pretty close. 2003. That's not pretty close, but... It was like six years. That's pretty close. In the grand scheme of history, that's pretty good. Okay. On November 19th of what year was an arrest warrant issued for Michael Jackson?

The famous singer of Thriller and Other Things. He used around in like the 90s, right? Yes. 19... This is a total guess. 1994. 2003. What?

Okay. I didn't even know he was still around then. That seems weird. Okay. What do you have for me? All right. This is also a super weird random date. Mm-hmm.

So I'm very sorry. In white year, do 12 people die while building a bonfire at Texas A&M University? This is one of the, like, largest bonfires. I used to know this. This is such a crazy story. This was in a book that I read about random facts you should know. Um, and this is at Texas A&M. Mm-hmm.

Uh, 2014. A little bit too late. 1999. That was way late. Okay. But they built this 59. nine foot high, massive pre-football game bonfire. It was wild.

That's insane. I don't even know how they did that, but... I don't know. I don't know. So neither of us got to... Oh, wait, you have one more for me. I got one more for you. Yes, go for it.

On November 17th of what year, did Elizabeth I come to power after the death of her half-sister Mary the first? Um, yeah, I have no clue. Just throw something out there. No, wait. Yeah, no, I got nothing. 1620 1558 shoot that is not my time period 1620 was around the publication of shakespeare's first

compiled works also known as the first folio that's nice I was just trying to give you something that was close yeah I never would have guessed when that was published either it was technically 1623 but I was thinking like I knew it was in that 100 year span. Yes. Okay, so I was sort of, for me, that was not too bad. It was a map. Yeah. All right. So we're, oh, we got nothing, right? Yeah, we're still 5.3. Okay, 5.3. Let's remember that for next time. Yeah. Thank you for tuning in to this week in history with Ava and Alessia, the show where we talk about all things history. See you next week on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.