WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - This Week In History: Nov. 23-30 - Union victories, political machines, and Casablanca

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

Join Ava and Alessia as they talk about the Union victory at Missionary Ridge, Boss Tweed’s arrest in Spain, 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 lot on the docket today. What do you have for American history, Eva? So on November 25th of 1863 during the Civil War, the Union had a victory at Missionary Ridge. So this battle took place in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was literally the day after another major civil war battle at Lookout Mountain, which is also in Chattanooga, where General Ulysses S. Grant and the Union were victorious and started pushing the Confederates down towards Georgia. But since this battle was the day after the previous one, they didn't make it very far in under 24 hours. So the Confederates made their camp at Missionary Ridge, and on the morning of November 25th, the Union attack began.

General Grant feared that the Confederates would reinforce their flanks and he commanded his center to advance. They were met with a ton of Confederate fire, but continued anyways because they're just cool like that. All the while, the Confederates had not actually been reinforcing their flanks, which made Grant's action extremely successful because he was just adding on so much more force than was really required, but that was just a win for him. The Confederates in the rifle pits on Missionary Ridge started either deserting or straight up retreating, and the whole army pretty much followed that, which being pushed by the Union Force on literally all sides. And this helped them get to Georgia just a little bit quicker, and the Union was victorious. That's really cool. Alessia, what American history tidbit fun fact of nugget of knowledge do you have for us today?

So I have November 23, 1876, so just a few years later, this is when Boss Tweed, who was part of this political machine type thing called Tammany Hall in New York, is delivered to the authorities after being arrested in Spain. Wow. So he was a major player in this in New York City's Democratic political machine and by the mid-1860s he'd really risen to the top of this Tammany Hall scheme that was based on graft and corruption and controlling voting and all of these different horrible aspects of political corruption. The political corruption of Tammany Hall was eventually at least in part brought down by this Harper's Weekly cartoonist. his name was Thomas Nast and he basically had this crusade against Boss Tweed and his whole scheme of graph as a result of some of this political cartoonist work and basically his crusade against Tweed and some investigation the Tweed ring and parts of Tammany Hall the people who were involved were arrested tried and sentenced to prison but boss Tweed was set to serve time

for forgery and larceny and some other little charges and then in 1875 he escapes from prison and travels to Cuba and Spain. So he manages to escape prison and then the entire country. That's actually wild. He's a crazy guy. And then eventually in 1876, he's arrested by the Spanish police. And apparently they recognized him from this cartoon. That's crazy work.

Yeah. I don't know how that happened, but pretty cool. Allegedly, this is how they caught him. I don't know. And then after Tweed's extradition to the U.S., he went back to prison and then died in 1878. So let's move on to world history now. Ava, what do you have for world? So today I will be talking about one of my favorite stories of literally all time and actually one of the stories that got me interested in history in the first place.

On November 27th of 5.11, so going back a good handful of centuries, Clovis I, who was the King of the Franks, died. And Clovis is an insanely cool dude. Just so everyone is on the same page. This, the story of this man's life is what got me interested in history. And thank you so, so much to my history teacher in middle school for telling this story in class on a complete, like, side tangent from what we were actually talking. about because this was extremely influential in forming my love of history. So thank you. Ban, I'm kind of disappointed in my history teachers now. I have never heard of this person. All of my history teachers were fabulous, so I'm very lucky. But anyway, Clovis I first ruled a good part of Gaul, which is the general area of modern day Belgium and France, from 481 to 511, which, if you know your history, this is the period right after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Like by 10 years, his rule was right after that. And this guy was extremely influential in uniting the Franks under one rule, while also

forming a really strong alliance with the Byzantine Empire. His rule merged common law with Roman law and Christian teachings and virtues, which was like the first time that had ever been done, which is insanely awesome. That's really cool, yeah. And you can read about this in Gregory of Tours' history, where he describes Clovis as the Constantine of the West, because pretty much the things that Constantine did are really similar to what I just mentioned that Clovis had done, except Constantine's in more the Byzantine-Eastern side, and Clovis is in the West. But he was also known for his dedication to the Christian

faith, being one of the first Germanic kings in history to turn from paganism and to convert to Catholicism. And this is where the story that got me into history comes in. I don't know how much of this is actually 100% true because some of Gregory of Tours' writing is more fluffy than true, if that makes sense. But anyway, the story goes, when he was getting baptized, he was getting ready to marry his wife who was Catholic, his fiancee who was Catholic, but he was still pagan. So he had to get baptized. He obviously believed in the faith and was really admired Christian teaching and virtue. And there was a bishop that baptized him, whose name escapes me at the moment. But this bishop was mega blind. Like no sight. Oh. Yeah. So Clovis is getting baptized by this bishop in some sort of

natural body of water. And this bishop is also mega old. And he has a really hefty staff. Oh my gosh. So Clovis has just gotten baptized and he's standing on the shore now. And all of a sudden, the bishop takes a step and his staff goes straight through Clovis's foot. Oh, no. Except Clovis didn't do anything. Do you want to know why? Why? He thought that was part of baptism.

That's so funny. So he didn't say anything until way later. He thought that getting a staff through your foot was part of baptism. Yes. Wow. But, yeah, it's wild, but that's one of the first stories that got me into history. So, yeah. Alessia, do you have any early medieval stories of baptisms for us?

Definitely not. Way out of my wheelhouse, you could say. So I'm going to bring us back to modern times. And we're going to go to November 26, 1950. So pretty recently in the grand scheme of history. And this is when the Chinese launched a massive counterattack against the United States in North Korea. To turn the tide back, red Chinese soldiers come to the aid of the North Koreans. And a pattern is established with first one side advancing and then the other.

So the Americans had gone into Korea to help the South Koreans, containment, communism, all of that. And then they had worked their way up to where Korea was originally divided, the 38th parallel. And then Douglas MacArthur, who was one of the major commanders during World War II in the Pacific, he is now the commander in Korea. And he decides that they're going to not stop at the old boundary. They're going to continue into North Korea and try to just take the whole thing. I remember vaguely hearing about this over the summer.

Yes, it's so frustrating because they end up going so far north. They're overstitching their supply lines, and then they end up in this place called the chosen reservoir. And it does not end well. No. Because, yeah, because the Chinese come to help the North Koreans, communist allies and all of that, and they send millions of soldiers it is the number is just incredible and the Americans are totally outnumbered um the Chinese aren't as well trained and they don't have as good of equipment but they come in anyways and just destroy with their sheer numbers because we had

been doing well against the North Koreans and then uh once the Chinese come in we're we're pretty much cooked and at the chosen reservoir well actually I think I should not swallow it because we're going to talk about it in our next episode. Because this is one of my favorite things in history to talk about. It's really sad, but it needs to be remembered. Yeah. Korea's forgotten a lot and it's part of my personal mission to make sure that it gets out there more, the history of it. Every time Alessie and I go to a bookstore and we find the military history section, she's always greatly disappointed in the two books they have on Korea. It's so bad. They have the same two books and one of them is not entirely straight history. They're all political

histories too. I want a military history. Somebody needs to write one. Maybe I should just write one. You should just do it. I don't know if I'm a good enough writer for that. But maybe that's my goal in life. Can be your little pet project. Yeah. Anyways. So yeah, the Americans are now outnumbered and we're going to see what happens in our next episode. If you're just tuning in, this is this week in history with Ava and Alessia on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. So let's go to military history on that note and keep going with this military theme that I've now set up. Isn't that normal for all of our episodes, though? They're normally military based. Pretty much. I think that's just, that's our thing. It's just our thing.

Yeah. So what do you have for military history, Eva? On November 25th of 1970, Yukio Mishima was seized at a Japanese military base. And I actually learned about this guy for the first time over the summer. He was a deeply influential Japanese novelist, playwright, and political activist. As a young man, his greatest desire was to serve the Japanese military in World War II. But he failed his physical exam. That's crazy. I thought for a while there they were just taking it. everyone. He was really not good at doing stuff. Wow. Yeah. It must have been really bad. Yeah. So instead of

being in the military, he worked in a factory and then in the financial sector of government while writing books and plays in his free time. His books revolved mostly around characters who are unable to ever have true happiness. And I wonder where those thoughts come from, seeing as his desire for true happiness was serving in the military and he didn't get it rough. But he was also very well known for founding his own private militia. Hey, I mean, if their government is going to tell him he can't serve in the military, then why not just create your own military? Which is pretty much what he did, just a couple of years later. So they were formed with the dedication to traditional Japanese values and a desire to prevent aggressive measures from foreigners who were seeking to get rid

of traditional Japanese culture. And he called it the Shield Society, and they are very important later. On November 25th of 1970, the day he delivered his final draft of the final book in his newest series to his publisher, he, along with a few members

of the Shield Society, took over a military base in the Tokyo area. Oh my gosh. Casually. But after situating himself on a balcony, he gave a speech that was about 10 minutes long. It was pretty much a call to to overthrow the post-World War II Japanese government and return to tradition.

He really expected that to work and people to follow his desires. And his speech was heard by about a thousand people who were at the base. However, they were not very stirred by his speech. Wow. At all. And in a traditional act to preserve his honor, he took his own life by stabbing himself through his middle with a sword. And then after he was already dead, a shield society member decapitated him.

So not necessarily a happy note to end my segment of military history on, but an important thing to know. For sure. Alessio, what's on your docket for military history? So I have November 23rd, 1942, and this is when the Soviet Army encircles the Germans at Stalingrad. This is one of the greatest counter-offensives, probably in history, honestly. It's crazy. They captured about 91,000 German soldiers. Dang. I know, right? But only about 6,000 of the 91,000 who were captured actually survived the war. Wow. And leading up to the encirclement at Stalingrad, the Germans had been absolutely crushing the Soviets. This was a major change. The Soviets had really run out of materials, and then they got trapped in Russia during the winter. It's where this old story that comes with Napoleon, don't invade Russia in the winter. Sure. Yeah, that's the lesson, basically. Just don't do it. I mean, it didn't work for Napoleon. It didn't work for the Germans. It's not going to work for you. The heroic defense of Stalingrad. The Soviet army turning the Nazi six-month assault into the most ghastly military disaster in German history.

There is a new study, though, that came out a couple days ago that said that global warming is causing Russian winters to be, significantly more warm. And I saw a meme today that was Napoleon saying, well, it looks like we can invade Russia in the winter now. Man, too bad it wasn't doing that when he was there. I guess that's what he's thinking at least or would have thought. But yeah, so that's my military history. And let's go to a fun pop culture now. Eva, what do you have? On November 23rd, third of 1936, Life Magazine publishes its first issue. Life is so cool. It's the magazine. We've all seen Life. I remember being a little kid going to the grocery store with my mom and seeing

Life magazine next to time in the checkout lane and wanting to just constantly have the new issue every time it came out because I'm like, I'd look so cool if I was reading Life magazine. Says the eight-year-old. I love that. I was obsessed. The cultural icon. Yeah. I just think it's such a a cool iconic thing in history. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, just a fun little tidbit. Alessia, what do you have for pop culture? I'm very excited about this one. I know you are. On November 25th, 1942, the movie Casablanca premieres in New York. This movie is so good. Everyone must go watch it at some point. If you haven't seen Casablanca, then life is just not complete. Then I guess my life is incomplete. Oh my gosh, you haven't seen it. I have not seen it.

Oh, we're going to be watching that. But basically, it's the story of this, I guess you could call it a bar, a bar owner in Casablanca in Morocco. And ex-girlfriend comes to the bar with her new boyfriend, or I guess they're married, actually, with her new husband. And he is running away from the Nazis. They had escaped mainland Europe. And we're trying to get to, I forget if it was England or America. I don't know. Somewhere where there were no Nazis.

Super specific. Yeah. And they had made it to Casablanca on a ship, and they were trying to get safe passage out. But you needed special documentation to be able to leave the country. So they were trying to get this. And she somehow, there's a famous line. It's like out of all of the, I forget if it was bars or saloons or whatever, I don't know. Out of all of these, you walk into mine. And he sacrifices what he wants and lets her go so that she can escape and have a good life. Should we listen to a clip of that? Yeah, here's one right now. Of all the gin joints and all the towns and all the world, she walks into mine. I think I really should watch this movie. I think I would like it. Highly recommend.

And fun fact, that was what I was going to ask you for my guess that year question. Oh, no way. So I just had to change it just now. Sorry about that. You're good. Speaking of that, let's go to guess that year right now. Fabulous segue. right there. Thanks, Eva. I think we're still 5'3. I think so. Because I have not gotten points in a hot

minute. We definitely didn't get any points last week. So that's okay. Let's try again. Yeah. Do you want to go first since you're in the lead? You should go first. Okay. Seeing as I just found the state since you talked about Casablanca. Okay. On November 23rd of what year was the famous outlaw Billy the kid born? Oh man. 18. 18. 1550? Super close. You're in the right decade. Oh, that's good. 1859. Ah, wrong end of the decade. I actually saw a bank in Wyoming that he robbed. Wait, that's so cool. It's very cool. It's completely run down now, but it's still cool. I mean, obviously, it wasn't a very good bank if it got robbed. It's also in a really tiny town.

Yeah. Middle of nowhere, Wyoming. Yeah. That's really cool. Okay. How are you going to stump me today? Hopefully this one won't be too hard, but... You say that? And then it normally is. In what year was the Iran-Contra connection revealed? This is going to be a massive hint, but I'm just going to give it to you. This is Ronald Reagan's presidency. Okay, because I would have guessed not then. Oh.

1988? Close. 1986. Okay. I was two years off. You were really close. Because I was like, it's not the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was before that.

I know it's before that. It was, in fact, before that. Okay. I don't know if you'll get this one, but I really hope you do. because we've been to this place. Oh, okay. On November 29th of what year was Louisa May Alcott born? Oh.

Her house was gorgeous, by the way. It was. It was stunning, and I should know this because we literally saw her house. She was writing Civil War-ish era, right? I can neither confirm nor deny. Oh, I give you a giant hint. Okay, I'll confirm. Okay, yeah.

Ish, roughly. Around there. Okay, so she was right. writing then she had to be born at least 20 years no at least 15 years before that let's go 1838 also in the same decade dang it was 1832 also the wrong end of the decade man it's okay I was close we have one more episode in this season to avenge our historical knowledge of completely random dates of normally useless Rivia.

It's so random. It's okay. Okay. Let me see. What do I have for you? Ooh, okay. This one's kind of dark. Mm-hmm.

In what year was Jeffrey Dahmer, the famous serial killer who did horrible things, murdered in prison? Well, the fact that it's Jeffrey Dahmer gives me a time frame. Yeah. 19708? Bit too early. 1994. Oh, yeah. I totally thought that was not then.

I thought he died way before that. I don't know when he committed his first murder. Maybe it was in that time period. Because I watched a documentary about him, but it focused mostly on his early life. Well, Ava, it looks like we're still at 5'3 yet again, another week with zero points. Yeah, for a number of episodes in a row. It's been a while for sure. That's okay, though.

Maybe our next episode will be different, hopefully. Anyway, thanks 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.