The Backstory with Patty Steele

In this replay episode: What would we do to live better, longer, or maybe even forever? Lots of quests for immortality involved mystical potions or objects. And one very popular fad in the 1920s involved transplanted monkey testicles!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this replay episode: Sex scandals are as constant in Hollywood as gorgeous people, glittering clothes, and scads of money. But while the paparazzi these days use every trick to give us an inside look at the private lives of the stars, they have nothing on the stars of Hollywood’s golden age. Sex, shocking divorces, and even murder—there’s nothing new under the Hollywood sun.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this replay episode: On a beautiful summer morning in 1908, a massive explosion hit Siberia. It downed 80 million trees and lit the night sky 3,000 miles away in Sweden. But to this day, no one knows what caused it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this replay episode: In the race to become the reigning superpower, nations have resorted to all sorts of bizarre tactics. Some of them were pretty humorous. And that reached new heights during the Cold War.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this replay episode of The Backstory: Born into complete poverty and now, by some accounts, the richest man in the world, Vladimir Putin has also become an enemy of most of the world. Here's where he came from, how he got a stranglehold on power, and what he’s doing with it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s never been easy to be a teacher, and yet their value is immeasurable. But imagine a time when teachers couldn’t date, dye their hair, go to a barber shop, or even enjoy a trip to an ice cream shop.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Did you know there was a period of time when the U.S. government secretly used the public to test biological weapons? Some sites included rural Georgia, San Francisco Bay, and the New York City subway system. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There have been plenty of killers who admitted they were inspired by violent movies, TV shows, and video games. This is the story of a couple of teenagers from the Midwest who robbed and murdered folks just to recreate their favorite movie: Natural Born Killers. And there's a powerful celebrity connection in this saga.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We all know major public figures who drive us crazy because they loudly share opinions we don’t agree with. But that’s democracy, right? So, the iconic Greek philosopher Socrates was exactly that kind of big mouth 2,400 years ago in Athens, where democracy was just being originated. Problem is, he angered the wrong big shots and wound up being executed in a really unusual way.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Partying is supposed to be all about providing entertainment for family, friends, or people you want to impress. But frequently, it’s about entertaining yourself. Some of history's wildest parties involved setting guests on fire, making them eat until they vomited, or making them have sex with strangers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Maybe you’ve seen Sicario, Scarface, Narcos, or Blow, but they have nothing on the bloody and intense real-life story of Pablo Escobar, the king of cocaine. Starting out as a kid in the slums of Medellin, Columbia, he went on to run the Medellin drug cartel in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. In his short life, Escobar’s cartel made him the 7th richest man in the world, with a net worth of $30 billion. And then…it all collapsed.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How does someone with such a brilliant mind and fierce work ethic turn out to be a world-class jerk as a dad? Steve Jobs knew how to create the world’s most valuable company. But when it came to his daughter, he admitted at the end of his life he’d failed her. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We all know about the midnight ride of Paul Revere at the onset of the Revolution. But what about Sybil Ludington, the female Raul Revere? She was just 16 years old when she made her little-known 40-mile ride to warn about approaching British troops in Connecticut.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A father hates his son for being everything he’s not: gentle and wildly talented. That hatred culminates in murder. The tragic family story of Marvin Gaye, where a life of pain goes unaddressed.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

War is a terrible thing under any circumstance. But imagine the Civil War. There were more deaths than the combined total in WW1 and WW2. Food, uniforms, medical supplies, working weapons, and more, all in short supply with con artists stealing as much as 25% of government war funds. But the passion and ideology so many soldiers brought to battle was astounding. This is the story of Johnny Clem who desperately wanted to fight for the Union. He joined the military at 9 years old and retired as a general 55 years later after marrying a Confederate’s daughter!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We had an attempted assassination on the campaign trail this summer. But in addition to the four U.S. presidents who were assassinated, there have been attempts on the lives of presidents or candidates nine other times...one of them was successful. What motivates the would-be killers? And how do we turn down the heat?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Re-release: The Netflix hit film Society of the Snow is the true story of South American athletes trapped in the snowy mountains after a plane crash…with some surviving by eating their dead teammates. Now we look at the Donner party of pioneers in 1846, trapped in 22 feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains…and the even more gruesome way some of them survived. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We all dream, but what stops us from making those dreams a reality? This is about a middle-class kid from Ohio who never stopped believing in the future.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

George Washington never lived in the White House or Washington, DC. The White House wasn’t white when it was built, and it wasn’t called the White House for its first 100 years. The famous portrait of George Washington that hangs in the East Room isn’t the original. Those stories...and the famous DC influencer who saved the day when the White House burned.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Are you intrigued by the thought of aliens visiting Earth and leaving behind signs like cave drawings and pyramids and geoglyphs? Did you know that many of these ancient sites are part of what’s called the Great Circle, appearing along an exact circle within a tenth of a degree of each other?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

She was the sexiest, most beautiful actress in Hollywood during her short career. But Marilyn Monroe had a heartbreaking childhood with a mentally ill mother. Her upbringing destroyed her self-confidence. And that allowed Hollywood and dozens of men to use and abuse her.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Scandal, fraud, embezzlement, wild parties, and illicit affairs—sounds very presidential, right? Not only was that the name of the game in the roaring 20s, a lot of it was essentially covered up by the press during Warren Harding’s short presidency. It was pure historical drama. With his sudden death, conspiracy theorists pointed at the ultimate insider.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So we’re all sweltering from the heat…air so thick and hot you can feel it go down your throat as you breathe. But heat waves are nothing new. They killed thousands in 1898 and thousands more in the early 1900s. But the one that hit London 166 years ago, changed the city forever. It was “the great stink of 1858.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

They say knowledge is power. But is it more important than ethics…or law? Over the centuries, researchers' quest to understand what’s under our skin, the human anatomy, has motivated scientists—as well as money-hungry grave robbers—to become body snatchers. But more than that, it sometimes inspired murder. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Polar explorer Ernest Shackleton and his crew spent almost 2 years trapped in sub-zero desolation after their ship, The Endurance, was ice-bound and finally sank, stranding them on an ice floe. This is their story of survival and endurance.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When you meet a guy dripping with testosterone who loves hunting, war, alcohol, and women, you don’t expect that he’s going to be obsessed with kittens and cats…and have dozens of them all over his home and office. That’s the paradox of Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author, Ernest Hemingway.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You think politics bust up our families? It’s hard to believe that, like us, politics could fracture a Founding Father’s family. Ben Franklin was incredibly close to his son William, then NJ’s royal governor, until he declared his allegiance to the king.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

He was an Academy Award-winning mega movie star. He had scores of affairs with women and men, 11 children by a variety of women, and a family story dominated by illness, mental illness, addiction…and murder. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Belle Cora went from minister’s daughter, to prostitute, to San Francisco’s richest madam, to wife of a man hung for the murder of someone who insulted her—all that before her death at 34. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An angry mob vandalizes a new home and then burns it to the ground. A young family barely escapes. Now 85 years later, after a lifetime of public service, the oldest daughter, now 97, moves back to that same piece of land, where another new home has been built as a gift from the community. It’s the full-circle life story of the Grandmother of Juneteenth, America’s second Independence Day. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We all have to regularly be somewhere on time. But what did people do before cell phone alarms or even alarm clocks? Animals, body cues, and knocker-uppers were just a few of the methods.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Did you know that as recently as the Victorian era, somebody could have you committed to an insane asylum just because you disobeyed a husband, were too opinionated, were caught masturbating, and so much more? The treatment ranged from being chained to a wall, beaten...and more. And no one had to prove your insanity! This is the story of how one woman, post-lock-up, changed the status quo.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hamilton the musical tells us the story of Alexander Hamilton, a brilliant guy who had a fiery temperament and a cheating heart. Imagine being his wife and raising eight fatherless kids, resurrecting her dead husband’s reputation, and being a tireless champion of widows and orphans. Plus, before her death at 97, Eliza Hamilton also became the toast of NYC and Washington. What a life!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Politics is a nasty business. But it always has been. And it may have played a role in the death of a literary genius. You know the Edgar Allan Poe story called The Tell-Tale Heart, about the heart of a murder victim that never stops beating? Maybe Poe is still trying to tell us something 175 years after his mysterious death.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We all love to laugh, no matter when, where, or how we’ve lived. Amazingly, there are a handful of topics that have given us the giggles for at least 5,000 years. And a lot of them involve 6th-grade humor.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

James Brown, the godfather of soul, had some anger issues. In fact, he went to prison after threatening agents at an insurance seminar with a gun because he thought they used his private bathroom. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Think politics today are the most angry and violent they’ve ever been? What about the days when senators and congressmen came to work armed with guns and knives? Or the murder of one congressman by another just because they had an ideological disagreement? That’s when politics were bloody.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We think the world just keeps evolving. But what happens when a civilization like Rome collapses and all that technology disappears? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Imagine meeting your children…and they're way older than you! But you've been obsessed since your earliest memory with the idea that you were the mother of eight kids. But you died, leaving them orphaned. And your guilt was palpable, even as a three-year-old! You may not believe in reincarnation, but it’s hard to ignore Jenny Cockell’s story.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We use words and phrases every day, and usually never question why we say what we say. Why do we say “she’s on a wild goose chase” or “we laughed our heads off”? The surprising origin of ordinary phrases. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You’d think being a princess (and ultimately the queen) of the Hawaiian islands would be an uncomplicated dream life. But the last queen of the kingdom of Hawaii dealt with an unfaithful husband, racism, death threats, and being placed under house arrest for over a year as her kingdom was overthrown by a coup and annexed to America. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Swearing, cursing, cussing, giving somebody the finger…they’re kind of ubiquitous these days, but they’ve been around for thousands of years. And now researchers say that yelling out your favorite four-letter word can even lower your blood pressure. But where in the &^%* did it all start and how has it evolved?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Born into complete poverty and now, by some accounts, the richest man in the world, Vladimir Putin has also become an enemy of most of the world. Here's where he came from, how he got a stranglehold on power, and what he’s doing with it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Being successful at what you do in business doesn’t seem to guarantee you’ll be a successful spouse or parent. Thomas Edison is a clear example of a genius businessman who was a bit of a failure as a father. Most of his children shared stories of their difficult relationship with the Wizard of Menlo Park.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thousands of young people, dreaming of stardom, head to Hollywood. A few make it, but so many more are victimized by predators who specifically prey on the most vulnerable types. This is the story of the Digital Entertainment Network, aka DEN, among the first companies with plans to stream digital content to young adults. That blew up because of its owner's lust for young boys.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Seemingly strait-laced Washington, D.C. in the 19th century was actually filled with illicit affairs. One of them involved some powerful players (and a very young wife). It also involved the son of Francis Scott Key, who wrote the Star Spangled Banner and it led to a murder that was the talk of pre-Civil War Washington…and beyond.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The lord of bhang, Reefer Madness…weed has a checkered past. But for thousands of years it was used and celebrated by most cultures. It wasn’t until one pivotal moment in the early 20th century that it became demonized. Now its benefits have been rediscovered and its reputation somewhat salvaged.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are some mysteries that we never quite figure out. One of them is about the 1971 hijacking of a jetliner by a guy called D. B. Cooper. He got $200,000 from the FBI and parachuted out of an airliner into the stormy wilderness of Washington state. They’ve never found him or even figured out who he was. But one man has stepped forward with a likely answer, thanks to his mom.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From a 2-inch wide blurry, black-and-white image, to a giant piece of clear glass that transforms wirelessly into an exquisite screen, television has almost magically evolved. In 100 years, for better or for worse, screens have become one of the most important, controlling devices in our lives. How did it start? And where is it taking us?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby 90 years ago led to the execution of a man a few years later. But researchers say there are plenty of reasons to suspect that there was a rush to judgment. And then there’s Charles Lindbergh’s fascination with Aryan superiority, which led him to have seven children with three German women, in addition to the six he had with his wife.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.