The Backstory with Patty Steele
Love a good, juicy story that goes beyond what we already know? We're talking scandalous presidential family members, a mass murder at a world-famous architect's home, stolen inventions, nude athletes at the first Olympics, compulsive liars, the arrival of the bikini, and so much more. History fanatic Patty Steele tells you the inside backstories you didn’t know you needed to know.
Episodes
The Winter Olympics are just weeks away. The athletes are celebrities! Now, imagine living 2 or 3,000 years ago and being an ancient Olympian. How did these guys compete, why did they compete, and how did they monetize their skill set? It was equal parts religion, eroticism, and highly valued body secretions.
Feel free to DM me if you have a story you’d like me to cover. On Facebook it’s Patty Steele and on Instagram Re...
Forget Dry January. Can you imagine being dry for 13 years? That was Prohibition from 1920 to 1933. But some folks, including one wildly famous international visitor, found some sneaky ways around the ban, claiming doctor’s orders. And most others drank really sketchy liquor.
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What Did Steven Spielberg Get Right and What Did He Get Wrong About Real Life Dinosaurs in Jurassic Park? An Eminent Paleontologist Breaks It Down. We Also See How and Why the Movie Was Made the Way It Was.
Also, Feel Free to DM Me If You Have a Story You’d Like Me to Cover . . On Facebook It’s Patty Steele an...
Home Alone, on a budget of just $18 million dollars, was the highest grossing film of 1990 in the U.S. It has become a holiday classic. But it almost didn’t get made. This is all about the skill and luck of bringing Home Alone to life and the amazing contributions of its 10 year old star.
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Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol . . inspired by political outrage? That’s the story and it makes sense when you hear what he went through and what he was seeing in London back in 1843.
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We know all about the Christmas traditions we’ve grown up with, but where did they originate? We celebrate with Christmas trees, cards, lights, visits from Santa Claus, and lots of great food. But our ancestors were more likely to celebrate with drunken dancing, weird games, and street fights. How did Santa Claus, Christmas carols, and eggnog become a thing?
It’s the winter solstice this weekend. We have a few months of frosty weather to deal with. But it’s amazing to consider how folks dealt with mountains of snow when there were no plows, nobody whose job it was to clear the streets and sidewalks . . and no central heat. Imagine giant cylinders being pulled through the streets to compact the snow!
It’s the holiday season, a time that brings out our desire to please those we love, particularly the kids in our lives. There’s a red hot toy every year, but what happens when that toy puts dollar signs in the eyes of grownups? This is about one toy that caused a lot of folks financial ruin and divorce, while it made a billionaire out of the guy who created it.
Every invention begins with a spark—a moment when imagination lights up with the thought of . . possibility. Problem is . . the line between that spark . . and an explosive outcome can be thinner than you think. This is about when death comes at the hands of your own invention.
And remember, you can message me if you have a story you’d like me to dive into and share. On Facebook it&rsq...
A combination of fever dreams and cocaine led to one of the greatest horror stories of all time. Robert Louis Stevenson was dying of tuberculosis when he wrote “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” He almost trashed it, but after nine days of frantic writing he had defined the gothic novel and given us a metaphor for people with split personalities: Jekyll and Hyde.
What Happens When Your Star Doesn’t Burn as Bright as Your Passion? Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding faced that question . . and is now on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List as an international drug lord. It’s about ambition without brakes and what happens when the skills that make you great — focus, risk tolerance, hunger for status — get redirected into a market where the...
50 years ago, Friday nights were all about going to the movie theater. Starting in the 1980s, the weekend plan involved heading to Blockbuster to pick up a movie and watching it at home. Today, we just stay home and watch Netflix. So, how did it all evolve? This is about two guys who asked . . and answered . . one simple question.
Many of us see Thanksgiving, most importantly, as a day to express gratitude. But gratitude is a universal expression of appreciation for our lives and our experiences. What’s amazing is how many Native Americans also celebrate gratitude on that day . . even though for them, it’s also a National Day of Mourning. But . . they still believe everyday is a day to give thanks. This is a peek ...
Thanksgiving is… the best. Whether you celebrate with family, friends, or even on your own… what makes it the best is the focus on gratitude. At least a dozen countries celebrate with a day or days of gratitude. But… what about all those traditions? Did a few big-time influencers impact when we celebrate, how we celebrate, what we eat, and in our parts… even the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade? Wher...
Agatha Christie is the biggest selling novelist in world history. Well over 2 billion books sold in 103 languages. She is the forever queen of mystery. But her biggest mystery is her 1926 disappearance. It made headlines all over the world.
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You think sex in the 18th century was all about being shy and virtuous? Not so much. Wait until you hear about the percentage of women who were pregnant before their wedding day. The Revolutionary War . . was actually on the cusp of a sexual revolution!
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Before the world was industrialized less than 200 years ago . . it smelled really different! They didn’t have to deal with the smell of gasoline fumes, burning rubber or oil, or the output of giant smokey factories. But imagine 3 1/2 million pounds of manure dumped onto the streets of New York City every day! Were they nose blind?
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Stephen King had nothing when he was a kid . . no dad, no money . . but he did have a flashlight so he could read books under the covers. His passion turned into his own books and films like Carrie, The Shining, Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, It, and The Long Walk. So, what was his secret?
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Communicating quickly with family, friends, and work colleagues, whether miles apart or rooms apart, has always been a challenge. It’s one human beings have been dealing with for thousands of years. We’ve used everything from smoke signals, to telegraph, to telephones, to weird devices like a tube you’d blow into to fetch an extra blanket.
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When you picture an art heist, like the one last month at the Louvre in Paris, you picture really cool looking international thieves. The guys nabbed in Paris however, were just regular small time crooks. But let’s go back to the most valuable museum heist in world history. It happened in Boston 35 years ago and was carried out by two guys wearing fake mustaches.
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Patty Steele