WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - This Week in History - Sept. 28 - Oct. 4: The Siege of Yorktown, USS Nautilus, and Charlie Brown

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

Join Ava and Alessia as they explore the siege of Yorktown, the first U.S. nuclear submarine, 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. I'm Alessia. Ava, it's been a crazy week in history. What do you have for us in American history? So this week in American history on September 28th of 1781, the siege of Yorktown begins during the American Revolution. So I've talked about this before, but sieges are my favorite aspect of, military history to learn and talk about, and I know this is the American history section, but we're talking about military history in America, so it counts. Anyway, the siege of Yorktown was really cool because it was technically a double siege,

both by land and sea. So British General Cornwallis had been chased by the Americans to Yorktown, and the guy was just trying to maintain lines of communication within his naval troops, but that didn't end too well for him. Washington commanded Lafayette and his troops to block Cornwallis by land while Washington's troops joined with their French allies under Rochambe. All the while, allied French ships were blocking the British fleet inside the bay, and Cornwallis was forced to wait for reinforcements.

While he was waiting, he was waiting in this little cave that you can actually go and visit, and it's super cool to look through, and it's also surrounded by a bamboo forest that I may or may not have climbed through. I can confirm, Ava. The cave was probably one of the coolest parts of Yorktown. I mean, aside from standing right where it happened. Yeah. The beach was cool, too. You could see the beach from the cave. So, like, imagining Cornwallis sitting in the cave waiting for reinforcements, just seeing the French fleet blockading him. It was the perfect place to just stand and picture what was happening at that moment. Yeah, but that's what I have for American history. What do you have? So on October 2nd, 1919, Woodrow Wilson suffers a stroke.

And this happens while he's on tour promoting his League of Nations, which doesn't really work out at first at least. At that time. But basically, after this, he is never quite the same. And for the last year or so of his presidency, his wife actually does a lot of it. And she's kind of running the show from behind the scenes. Girl power? Well, illegal girl power. This was also a year after the end of World War I, and the Spanish flu was a big problem at this time.

So she had her fair share of struggles as well. She had to lead a nation through this, and that's not something you can just easily get thrown into. It's also not something she should have done in the first place, but that's okay. Yeah, he probably should have left office, but... Yeah, we're not going to talk about that, though. He is low-key the worst president. Yeah, I can get behind that statement. Not just for this reason.

Okay, let's move into world history now. Ava, what do you have for us? So on October 3, 1990, East and West Germany was reunified. There was a treaty ratified by the, I'm probably going to butcher this, the Bundestag and the People's Chamber earlier in September of 1990, but went fully into. effect on October 3rd, and this meant that the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic were joined together again. About a year prior, a communist functionary mistakenly or accidentally, I couldn't really figure out which one it was, said that the passage between East and West Germany would be permitted starting immediately, which was not actually technically true. There were other

plans that were going to be way more governmentalized, I would say, like without. having to go get visas and apply and all that stuff. But that caught all of the border guards off guard. Ha ha. Jokes. Very funny. Thank you. And they let people cross.

But yeah, Germany was reunified and that's really big. Have you heard Ronald Reagan's 1987 Berlin speech about the wall? Yeah. It's pretty incredible. Yeah. I have a little funny story about that. So I was sitting in subway with my mom. In subway.

In subway. the food establishment, getting ready to go to Wednesday night church in, I think I was in middle school. And we were talking about if I knew about the Berlin Wall and Ronald Reagan speech, and my answer was no. And so my mom, we were the only people in that subway. And my mom pulled out her, like, iPhone 4 or whatever, and made me watch the entire speech out loud in subway. Mr. Gorbachev. Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall. And that's what I associate with the speech is subway and slight public embarrassment.

Public embarrassment. But also educational public embarrassment. It was for a purpose. And everyone else who was forced to listen, even though you were like the workers. It was just the two subway employees. Yeah, they were being, they were learning something about history. They were. the world and that's important.

We're learning about the Berlin Wall, along with middle school me. It's a great lesson. Yeah. What do you have for world history, Alessia? So my world history date is October 1st, 1946, and this is the day that Nazi war criminals are sentenced at Nuremberg. Twelve high-ranking Nazis were sentenced to death, including Herman Goring, who was the founder and general, I guess, of the German Air Force.

He was one of the top, like the top Nazi officials at the time. And some people thought that he might have been Hitler's successor if Hitler died or whatever, if Germany had even won the war. But obviously that did not happen. And I think there was seven others who were given lighter prison sentences. One of those was Rudolf Hess. He was Hitler's former deputy. At one point during the war, I'm pretty sure he parachuted into England and was captured.

Because why not? Yeah, he was like, okay, I'm so over it. I forget the actual full story. Another notable story would be, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing this right, but Joachim Piper, he was a, I'm not sure if he was technically S. I think he was SS. And he was a commander of a unit in France. And he was known for the Malmadi Massacre where I can't remember the exact number, but a bunch of American soldiers were executed.

I think it was something like 80, but I could be off on that. It could be more, could be slightly. I think it was maybe more, but I'm not for sure. But he was really the leader and one who commanded, who ordered for that to happen. The strange thing with him is that he got sentenced, he was in jail for a little bit, and then his sentence got commuted, and he for some reason decided to go live in France, which doesn't make sense. Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, understandable, they're food. It is great. I mean, yeah, but when you commit war crimes against a people, you probably shouldn't go live in their country. Probably not. That sounds like a poor decision. Yeah, I would think. But apparently not to him. And then somebody eventually can't remember the exact year, but lit his house on fire and killed him. Oh. So, yeah.

It's giving me flashbacks to a reading we had in military history too last year. They were sentenced this week in history. If you're just tuning in, this is This Week in History with Ava and Eleanor. on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Let's move into military history now. Eva, what do you have for us? Okay, so I'm going to throw us back into the ancient period real fast. October 1st of 331 BC, Alexander the Great of Macedon defeats Darius the third of the Persian Empire in the Battle of Galgamela.

I'm not going to lie. I have no idea what this is. It's okay. I'm about to talk about it. Yes, it would be great. You need to educate me. We learned about this in military history won, and I thought this battle was very. really cool. And when I was looking up things to talk about today, I was like, oh my gosh, I kind of know about that.

That's wild. I need to take this class. You should take it the next time it cycles in. My knowledge of the ancient world is very, very low. It's great. Highly recommend. Anyway, so Galgamela is in modern day Iraq, just to give you a geographic location that is an ancient. Darius III chose Galgamela for its suitability to his cavalry forces being it was a plane that was pretty flat, but he still had to level quite a bit of it, so it was easier for his cavalry forces to move. And he knew he had a cavalry advantage over Alexander the Great's army, who was more infantry-based. Anyway, so Darius set up his forces with chariots in the front lines, of which he led in the center. In the front line with him were Greek mercenaries, Persian heavy infantry and archers, as well as Persian cavalry. The left of the line was led by Bessus,

who I highly recommend that you just go read about in your own time because I don't have enough time to get into Bessus. But Bessus is crazy. And the right side of the Persian force was led by Maseus. Now, Alexander had to decide how to strike the Persian forces while avoiding full envelopment. In addition to the Persian chariots breaking up his phalanx, which is just a type of infantry formation. When you're the underdog and you have like a lot of people coming at you fast on horses with pointy things, it's scary. I would say so. Yeah. Luckily, horses do not like running towards walls of spears, to quote Dr. Gerke.

I mean, yeah. So the way that Macedonian phalanxes worked is that you were in a formation with spears pointed at different angles, depending on what row you were in the phalanx, creating a wall of spears that horses don't like to run at. Right. And Alexander knew that if he moved right, he could kind of freak out the Persians because they thought they were going to come straight. Cool strategy moment. But Alexander went right towards the left. level ground that Darius didn't flesh out before the battle. And that threw off the Persian chariators in addition to his archers who were obliterating them. Like the Macedonian archers were just

hamming it up. All of this explanation is majorly oversimplified. But anyway, that resulted in the Persians fleeing and a Macedonian victory. You should go read about that in your own time because it's an extremely cool battle. Highly recommend. Sounds like this is one of the reasons why he's called Alexander the Great. Alessia, what do you have for Millions? military history. For military history, I have September 30th, 1954. The USS Nautilus is commissioned, and this is the world's first nuclear submarine. Yes. Which we actually visited last year. I love the Nautilus. It's really neat. So cool, I think I'll visit it. It's kind of crazy when you go inside. You don't

I didn't really feel like it was 50s technology. No. It was very modern. Although I guess they used it for, I forget when the last time they used it was, but I feel like it was fairly recently. In the grand scheme of history. In the grand scheme of history recently. But it was extremely cool. You couldn't go see all the different areas.

Pretty much everything was open to at least look at if you couldn't go in it. They have those creepy wax dolls that are everywhere. That was absolutely terrifying. They're freaky. They'll just turn around and there'll be one. There's one standing there. They also have coffee holders in all of the control rooms where you can set your mug of coffee so it doesn't spill.

I think they had an ice cream machine. They did have an ice cream machine. And I thought that was a fabulous addition to a war vessel. Yeah. I mean, you need, oh, I think it was used in the 90s at least. Because maybe after that, too. Because the ice cream machine, that was not original, I feel like. I just looked it up.

It was 1979. That was when it was last used. So I was kind of off on that. But in the grand scheme of the creation of the world to now, though, you were pretty close. Yeah, yeah. Let's go to pop culture. Ava, what do you have? So I'm a bit of a theater nerd.

This week's date is October 2nd, 2005. August Wilson, the famous American playwright, died. August Wilson is most known for his play Fences, which is in the Pittsburgh cycle, which is a super cool idea. The way he did it is that there are a selection of plays, and each play takes place in Pittsburgh, but in a different decade, and explores different areas of life. And it's really, really interesting. Highly recommend you go read August Wilson plays, particularly Fences. Fences is really good. I remember liking it when I read it in high school.

Yeah. Except I'm from Pittsburgh, and I did not know it was said in Pittsburgh, which might be really stupid. Maybe I just forgot. I don't remember learning about that, and I feel like we would have. That just seems odd for me to forget. I feel like people don't mention that it's part of the cycle that often. I never heard of the cycle. But I haven't read or watched any of the other plays in the cycle, but I want to at some point.

There's also a really good movie version of Fences. Yeah. That is literally fabulous. There's somebody famous in that. Is it Denzel Washington? Is that him? Yeah, it's Denzel Washington. 2016.

Yeah, I knew it was fairly recent. Okay. But really good. highly recommend we love august wilson but yeah what do you have for pop culture so on october second 1950 the very first peanuts comic strip was published in a newspaper no way yeah charlie brown came into existence this week have you read the penis comic strips before or like just seen the movies? I've, I think I've read a few comic strips.

I've seen a few on the internet. But I mostly just watched the movies. I love Charlie Brown so much. Okay, Snoopy, one of my favorite Christmas songs is, it's called Snoopy's Christmas, and it's about Snoopy fighting the Red Baron. I know what you're talking about. And it's the most wonderful song.

Yes. It might be my favorite, which is probably sad, and shows how nerdy. I am. But it's so entertaining. I always loved on Snoopy to do it again. Was the night before Christmas, 40 below. When Snoopy went up in search of his foe.

I always love the Thanksgiving movies. Oh, that one's the best. Because there's the one where they throw their own Thanksgiving in their backyard, and then there's the one where they tell the story of the first Thanksgiving. I think the Thanksgiving ones are my favorite. They're so good. Like, nothing beats. the Christmas one with Linus.

Oh, yeah, that is true. The Thanksgiving ones are like a close second for me. Yeah. I also like the Great Pumpkin one. Yes, that was really cute. And the new Peanuts movie where Charlie Brown tries to read Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, I just personally found that hilarious. I haven't seen the new movie.

I don't think I have. It was actually pretty good, in my opinion. I have to watch it. Highly recommend. All right, it's time for everyone's favorite game. Yes, that you. year, the game where we may or may not embarrass ourselves about our ability to connect dates with historical events.

Ava, do you remember the score? I wrote it down. Hold on. I should look. I'm pretty sure it's 3-2. I think you're right. Yeah. I think you're in the lead 3-2. Yeah, 3-2. All right, you should go first. Okay. On September 30th of what year, did Babe Ruth become the first baseball player to hit 60 home runs in a single season? He held this record until 1961 when Roger Martin hits 61 home runs. Oh my gosh. Sports are my weakness. It's okay.

Unless it's Formula One. Formula One, I know everything. You are a Formula One nerd in like the best way possible. I kind of love it. I've learning so much from you. You guys are going to get really annoyed with all. You probably are already annoyed with all of the reels that I send you. I appreciate it.

You're passionate about something. Don't be, don't apologize for something you're passionate about. Now, while I do know Formula One, I definitely don't know baseball. So I know it's the early 1900s. Just give it your best guess. 1922. 27. Okay, I was in the right decade.

Not point worthy, I feel like. That's a little too far for me to give you a point. Still, right decade. I'll consider that a win. Eva, in what year did Lawrence of Arabia lead liberation forces into Damascus? This is really difficult. Yeah, unless a great question. You're a nerd.

Was Lawrence of Arabia ancient or modern? Modern. I feel like I should know this. Well, I don't. I know you don't do ancient. I'm literally so out of my field with this, though. Yeah, I know. I'm sorry.

I did not help you all. So I might not even be in the right century. I'm just going to tell you that. I think military history. I know. But military history has been a thing since, like, the ancient period. Yeah, but like modern wars, like. What are you classifying as modern?

Like, would you classify the Spanish-American War as modern? Probably, but this is after that. That's the hint I'll give you. Okay, so it's in the 20th century. Yes. Okay, cool. 1939. 1918.

This was in the first World War. Okay. You were close. I'm out of my depth with World War I stuff. That's okay. This was just, I found it really fascinating. Maybe I should pick things that you would actually know. It's okay.

That's part of the game is I don't know what's coming. Except for that one question you gave me about William McKinley. Oh yeah. That one was right up your alley. Yeah. Okay. What do you have for me? Okay.

October 1st of what year did Walt Disney World in Orlando open? Oh my gosh. If you've read those little kids books with like the big cartoon bobbleheads on the thing, I have the Walt Disney one. Oh my gosh. And that's the last chapter in that book. I love those ones. My favorite one was the Claire Barton one.

That one was like on. Oh, yeah, that one was good. Okay. I honestly don't know. I'm just going to throw out it. Throw it out. 1950. No, 1971.

Oh, dang. Okay. I knew it was after World War II, but not when. No. Okay. Okay, what do you throw it at me? All right. When did, oh, man, I am so sorry.

Just go for it. Okay. It's a fine. When did a British soldier allegedly spare the life of an injured Adolf Hitler. Oh, so I've got at least two decades to pull from. You can do this. So if there's a British soldier and Adolf Hitler together, there must be something

military happening. I know, I know, like World War II per chance. Like maybe before that, World War I per chance. Yeah. So never, okay. Now you have a four-year gap to choose from. Okay, you can do this. 19.

17. You were so close 19, 18. You were so close. But I'm sorry, I can't give you a point because I gave you a massive hint. You did give me a massive hit and I still got it wrong. I mean, you had a 25% chance. Well, yeah. Once I got down from World War II to World War I.

Yeah. I mean, fair. Like when someone mentions Adolf Hitler, I mean, you think World War II. Yeah. I always forget that he was around before that. Yeah. Apart from like the late 20s, early 30s. I'm aware of that bit.

Ava, this was a very unsuccessful guess that year. Yeah. Did you get a point? No. Wait, did you get? Oh, wait, yeah, no. I forgot. Because you gave me a massive hint and I still got it wrong.

That's right. That's right. All right. Zero points yet again. So we're still three, two. Still three, two. We're not doing well. That's okay.

It's something to work towards in all of our extensive free time. We're learning a lot. Thanks for tuning into 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.