WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - This Week In History: September 7-13: Straw Hat Riot, WWII Espionage, and Nirvana

Episode Date: September 8, 2025

Join Ava and Alessia as they explore a crazed hat riot in the streets of New York, the Roman Empire's destruction of Jerusalem, "Band of Brothers," 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're starting off with American History this week. What do you have for us, Ava? Okay, guys, so this is a really weird thing that I just found personally entertaining. Like, there were a lot of dates I could have chosen for this week. But when given the chance to choose the New York Straw Hat Riot from September 13th, 1922, can't just like pass that up. So anyway, crazy riot. It was actually resulting from

unwritten rules for men's fashion in New York in the early 1900s, which you wouldn't ever really think of that. Like when you think of fashion riots in the past, it's always been women's fashion. This one was for the men. Anyway, so you know how today we have the rule where you don't wear white after Labor Day and people just lightly ridicule you if you do? Yeah, but to be honest, I thought that was kind of fake. It's very much a real thing. But back in the day, they kind of had a similar thing where men were not allowed to wear straw hats after the start of autumn. What?

Yes. No way that was the thing. Because straw hats were considered a casual summer luxury. The date of the official start of autumn was never officially written down anywhere. So that caused a lot of problems. Some people believed it was September 13th. Others thought it was September 15th. And this caused problems because that's an eight-day difference in there.

That's a lot of time in which things could go poorly for some poor fellow who wears a straw hat walking down in Manhattan. But so there was this hobby that was brought about by the youths called hat bashing. So it wasn't supposed to start until after September 15th, but you could walk up to anyone you saw randomly who was wearing a straw hat, take it off their heads, rip it apart, stomp it. Like, it was a thing. No way. Yes, it was a thing.

Somebody's favorite hat definitely got destroyed. Oh, many times. But anyway, so on September 13th of 1922, some New York youths decided to get ahead of the game of hat bashing. and they, however, picked on the wrong people to hat bash. Who did they go after? They went after New York dock workers. Oof, that was not a good call.

Imagine a 14-year-old kid walking up to this, like, massive dock worker who build ships all day, and he's just had like a what, had there been the eight-hour labor? Those dock worker guys absolutely obliter. those kids, except that turned into a brawl that was so huge that the police had to get involved because it had stopped traffic on the Manhattan Bridge. Oh, my gosh. Mm-hmm. So a lot of people were arrested.

There were a lot of injuries, but the hostilities didn't stop there. They ended up lasting for five days because all of everyone's families got involved of the people who were arrested. But yeah. So don't wear straw hats. That's the moral of the story. good thing those went out of fashion a long time ago yeah what about you for american history all right so for my american history date i picked the obvious one for this week um september 11th 2001 um obviously everyone knows this date um when the twin towers were attacked by um osama bin laden and al qaeda and this is one that americans remember i mean i'm removed from that because i'm removed from that because because we're now in the generation where people haven't lived through 9-11.

And I remember hearing my parents' stories about what happened that day and then watching it on TV. My dad was actually at work and he was in the Air Force. And so he was like getting ready to fly that day. So my mom was at home freaking out. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Everyone has their story. Everyone remembers where they were on that day.

And that's something that kind of tied the country together at a time when. They didn't agree on a lot of things. Have you been to the memorial? I've been to the one. So I'm from Pennsylvania, and I've been to the one that is in Shanksville, and it's Flight 93. Was that the one that crashed in the field? Yeah, it was the one that they thought was going to the Capitol, and then the people took it over, and that memorial is really sad. It tells, like, such a heroic story, but also it's just incredibly sad.

And they have, they just expanded it a couple years ago. They added a bell tower with all the, with chimes for everyone who was on board. Oh, wow. So it's kind of like their voices are still being heard, I guess. That's like chilling. Yeah, it is. And they have a path that in this black, like marble type thing that marks the flight path. It's pretty incredible.

But really sad. Have you been to the one in New York? I've been to the one in New York and the one at the Pentagon. Okay. The, both of them were super just emotionally heavy, but the one at the Pentagon, I think, was more heavy for me because there was a security staffer there who explained the whole memorial to us and how the size of the retaining wall around the memorial represents. I think it was the average height of everyone who was killed going from the smallest to the

tallest, and the smallest of which was, I think, I'm not sure the exact month of how old this baby was that passed away, but the smallest height of the wall, I think, is seven inches. Seven inches to represent, I think, months he was alive. That number could also be completely wrong, but the story, the idea of the story is there. Yeah, a lot of people have told me that when they go to the reflecting pool in New York, it's just... It's silent there, too. Yeah. Like, nothing is happening, and that's crazy for downtown New York.

Right. Let's change pace now and go on to world history. Ava, what do you have for world history? Okay, so this one isn't necessarily a lighter note by any means, but on September 8th of 2022, Queen Elizabeth II passed away. So, this is actually... actually a funny story relating to that. The moment I found out she passed away,

I was actively sitting in my car parked at a sonic drive-thru, or not drive-through, like, you just pull in and they give you your food on roller skates, and it's great. But I was just sitting in my car by myself after school, waiting on my Sonic and scrolling through Instagram, and I saw that the queen had died, and I was like, oh, my gosh, that's not actually true. And so I started really.

reading articles about it in my car in the sonic and just started crying. Oh my gosh. And the girl on roller skates who brought me my food was just really concerned. And I said, you don't understand? The queen just died. And then she started crying too. And it was really weird. But that's what I remember from that day.

But if you don't know much about Queen Elizabeth, she's an insanely cool. person. All of what she had to go through through her childhood was not necessarily fully planned like it is for most royals because she wasn't even supposed to be that much in line for the throne, but her uncle abdicated, which means her father was king, and then she was then the sole heir. Well, not the sole heir, but the next in line. And that completely changed her trajectory of life, so she just got completely turned upside down. But she stayed strong. She was still. super cool. And what about what world history event do you have? So for my world history event, I have September 13th, 1944, and this is the day that Noor Inniak Khan was executed. So

nor is kind of a hero for me. She's so brave and just impressive. So nor was a spy for the British SOE, the special operations executive. Um, and she was, the first female radio operator to be sent into France during the Second World War, yeah. And she had, she went to Paris. And when she was there, I think it was prosper. It was the network that she was working for. And that whole resistance network just completely collapsed. And Nor managed to escape the carnage of that. And this was practically right after she got there. And so she goes to Paris and she is kind of hiding. She's trying to send messages still and do some work. She wants to stay. They offer her the chance to leave, but she chooses to stay so that she can continue

to make a difference in the country that she was raised in that she loves. But eventually she is caught. She was staying with a friend and it's believed that she was, she ratted her out. They ratted her out for special treatment and the Gestapo came to her room and she tried to escape. She fought back really hard. They found like skin under her nails so that like she was really fighting back. But in the end it didn't it didn't really work and they overpowered her, took her to prison, tortured her for days and days and then eventually sent her to a concentration camp where they executed her. Dang.

Really sad, but a true story of courage, because she didn't give up any information. Absolutely nothing. Good for her. She withstood torture, which most people cannot. All right. So, these have all been really dark so far. Yeah.

Sorry, guys. I guess it's just a dark note for this week in general. Man. Because what I'm about to tell you from military history is not much better. If you're just tuning in, this is this week in history with Ava and Alessia on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Since you already said it was dark, Ava, what do you have for military history? Well, yeah, it's just dark. So this is probably one of my favorite dates in all of history because it was drilled into my headed middle school by my middle school history teachers.

So this week, September 7th, in 70 AD, and I'm going to phrase it this way because this is how I was, was expected to phrase it in middle school. Rome sacked Jerusalem. Yeah, but if we didn't say Rome sacked Jerusalem when we had to stand up and recite all of the dates we were supposed to know, we got like, it was, it was a whole thing. That's ridiculous. But so now it's just ingrained in my head that way. During the first Jewish Roman war, the Roman Empire under Titus was laying siege to Jerusalem during a big revolt. So the siege was horrible, and it was overlapping a time

where Jerusalem was hosting a lot of religious pilgrims for religious events and holidays. So during a day where the people in Jerusalem would definitely be doing religious holiday things, the Romans entered the city

and completely burned it to the ground. All they left were three towers and just a couple small sections of the city wall. The siege and the so-called triumph of Titus was memorialized in the Arch of Titus, which was built in 81 AD, so about 11 years after the actual siege. Seges are cool, not for actual doing purposes, but for studying purposes. But those are my thoughts. What do you have for military history, Alessia? All right. So my event also happened on September 7th, except definitely not in Roman Empire Times. In 1776, the year America was founded, the first use of the turtle, which was this little submarine that was, it was this little submarine that was, it's basically like a wooden barrel, a giant wooden barrel with like a scope.

Yeah, pretty much. and you can kind of is steer it. It's by your feet, right, that you pedal? You pedal with your feet, yeah, and you're supposed to be able to release a bomb. And so they attempted to use it on the HMS Eagle. And I think it was, I want to say it was in New York at the time, but I'm not entirely sure on that. It was somewhere around there. It was in the New England area.

Yeah, somewhere around there. It didn't work. Let's just, I mean, obviously, who would expect that to work? It was such a long shot, but they figured, you know, new technology. And as far as submarines go, it's pretty cool. Like a one-man submarine that you pedal through the water. But it was so hard to breathe in there. It just couldn't work.

They didn't have the technology yet to make it work. Nothing happened to the HMS Eagle. It was perfectly fine the next day. But yeah, it was a cool little bit of American entrepreneurship, I guess. right at the start of American history. Yeah. And we actually saw it last spring break, or at least a replica. Yeah, we did.

It was a replica, right? Yeah. Yeah. It was very cool. It was very small. Yeah. It's literally, you can fit one person in there and not very well. Let's move on to pop culture.

Eva, what do you have for us this week? Okay. I can take us out of the dark theme on this one. Let's go. So the band Nirvana, one of the most popular bands literally ever. They released their hit single Smells Like Teen Spirit on September 10th of 1991. So this single sold over 13 million units and is still one of the best-selling songs of all time.

And here's a clip of Smells Like Teen Spirit if you haven't heard it before. Fun fact about Smells Like Teen Spirit, Kurt Cobain had a friend in another band and one day she just said, Kurt, you smell like Teen Spirit. And he thought that was some punk rock revolutionary phrase or something because he didn't know that Teen Spirit was a deodorant brand. No way. He legit did not. So the song was super popular. People thought it was funny. People thought it was punk rock like he did. And then a couple months later, he was just walking about, I guess, and finally figured out that Teen Spirit is in fact a deodorant and not just oh like yeah stick it to the man kind of grungy punk rock thing oh my gosh and about him just

smelling like deodorant that's really funny i did not know that okay what do you have for pop culture all right so for my pop culture on september 9th 2001 another 2001 in within two days oh that's kind of odd but anyways band of brothers is released my favorite show well i don't know if it's my favorite show but it's definitely in the top three yeah Definite top three. Yeah. It's so good. It is a piece of just...

Cinematic masterpiece. It really is. It's Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. They worked together to create this. And they portray the story of the 101st Airborne Division, the 506th in particular. But it goes from their time right before D-Day when they're training up through the end of the war when they liberate. all the different places that they went through and then end up in Birch's Garden

and then what happens to them right after it gives you like a little tidbit of what happens in their life it is absolute just it's cinematic perfection the only thing that could have been better is if it was made now and the quality

camera quality and cinematography quality could have been better but the shots were gorgeous they're just a little fuzzy because they just didn't have the greatest technology then and the intro is so good it's so good it's 10 minutes it's long, but it is absolutely perfect, and it's worth watching all 10 minutes every single episode. We totally didn't binge that this summer. I think I've seen the series. It's 10 episodes.

Each episode is an hour, but I'm pretty sure I've seen it probably 15 times. I don't think that's a bad thing, though. Since like 10th grade. So that's not a lot of years to watch that 15 times, but it's okay. Just don't worry about it. It's fine. I think the first time I watched it, it was 1 a.m. and when I got to the last episode and I was just distraught. I couldn't sleep after that. I looked up all of the history behind it. I had to know what actually happened to these people.

It was wild. But I'm a nerd. Yeah. So I don't technically maybe not pop culture. It's definitely pop culture. It's a movie. I mean, yeah, but it's not like immensely popular. It's history-related pop culture.

True, true. At Hillsdale, it's pop culture. Yeah. We talk about it so much all the time. All right. Well, that was pop culture. And now it's time for... Everyone's favorite game show.

Yes, that year. All right, Ava, you go first. Okay. In what year... This week, in what year, was CERN, the large particle collider in... I think it's Sweden, powered up for the first time. Oh, my gosh. I've never even heard of that before in my life.

How have you never heard of? I've never heard of that. It's in literally every science textbook ever. Do I? I have never heard of that. No. I'm just going to take a wild guess. It's definitely in the 20th century. That's for sure. Uh-huh. Well, 20th century? Or 21st? I don't know. Well, I have the date in front of me, but you just go for it. Okay. Well, now I'm doubting that. I was thinking like the 90s or something, but now I'm thinking more like 2000s. Did I give you a hint? Did I make it harder for you? I don't know. Okay. I'm just. going to throw out a random year because I have absolutely no clue. Okay. 2002. 2008. Oh, man. Okay.

Thank you for that hint. Well, I do not get a point for that. I totally know that at all. I'm not going to lie. I at least said that because for a brief second, I forgot that 20th century was in fact started with 19 in the numbers and not 21st century, but that's just a me thing. That worked in my favor. Yeah.

I'm just going to throw that out there. But it was pretty close. Yeah. Just about. All right. So in what year did. JFK married Jacqueline or Jacqueline. Jacqueline.

Sorry. Or Jackie. You'd say that in the more American way. Oh, gosh. Well, he was president in the 60s and they were married before that. So I'd say like 1957. That's pretty close. 53.

53. Okay. All right. That's halfway through the game and we're both and neither of us have any points. So we're not doing so hot today. That's okay. That's okay. But it's fine.

All right. Go for it, Eva. Okay, I purposefully chose this one to kind of stump you. Oh, no. So we'll see how it goes. When was the last use of the guillotine in France? Oh, my gosh. Okay, well, definitely after French Revolution.

Well, yeah. It was pretty popular then. Yeah. I feel like this was actually more recent than I would think. I don't know. The 50s, like 55 or something. I don't know. You're not, in the grand scheme of time,

you are not far off on the scale of eternity. Okay, that's sad a bad. It was September 10th, 1977, was the last use of the guillotine. Okay, I thought the 50s was late for what I was thinking, but the 70s, dang, I knew it was. All right, for the last part of our game, so far we're completely scoreless. Lovely. Love that for us. Eva, when was the first drunk driving arrest?

Oh, does that include via cart and buggy, or like horse and buggy or motorized automobile. I'm assuming car because of how late it is, but I honestly couldn't tell you. Okay. This is just going to be a guess. I'm going to say like 1928. 1897. Oh, so I was off. A little bit. Yeah. Well, we both have zero out of zero or zero out of two points. So I don't know what that says about us. Well, we will continue competing for the guess that year championship throughout the course of this semester and year, I guess. Well, thank you all for tuning in to This Week in History with Ava and Alessia, the show where we talk about all things history. And we will see you next week on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.