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
If women in the 1800s wanted to take a swim . . they were pulled into the surf in a cabana on wheels, wearing 30 pounds of wet wool. So how did we get to the bikini, much less the thong?
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While watching the Catholic Church choose a new pope earlier this month, it seemed completely immersed in tradition. But Pope Leo the 14th is a very different leader than an earlier namesake . . Pope Leo the Tenth, from the powerful Medici family. His reign in the early 1500s and his love of partying and living like a king . . brought about one of the biggest religious upheavals in European history.
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What happens when you’re born into tremendous wealth and social standing, but all you want is a bohemian life filled with creativity and freedom? In 1910 the life of a socialite was pre determined before birth. One young woman felt trapped and simply disappeared. But what really happened to Dorothy Arnold?
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We’ve been intrigued in the past few weeks with the ancient traditions surrounding the choice for a new pope to lead the Roman Catholic Church. But that transition hasn’t always been smooth. This is another look at one of the darkest moments in Church history. It was the Cadaver Trial of a dead pope, which took place 1100 years ago.
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Jessica Savitch had a dramatic rise... and an even more dramatic fall in the network news business of the 1970s and ’80s. It’s a shocker! But her tragic story oddly inspired Will Ferrell to do the movie Anchorman: The Rise and Fall of Ron Burgundy. Here’s the backstory!
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Few authors have impacted literature and our culture like On the Road author Jack Kerouac. But his short life was filled with pain, depression, addiction, and murder... as well as brilliance. This is a peek at his rise and fall.
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Nothing like the Kentucky Derby... even if you’re not a dedicated thoroughbred race fan. Those animals are exquisite bundles of pure muscle. So... imagine trying to kidnap one! How would you do it... and what happens after you get him? It happened over 40 years ago in Ireland to one of the most remarkable European Derby winners of all time and his billionaire owner. This is his story.
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How does a book start out as a complete failure only to suddenly be celebrated as one of the great American novels, decades later? And what was its heartbreaking inspiration? This is the story of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic The Great Gatsby, published 100 years ago this month.
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Nothing makes us melt like a great story about a kid and a dog. Lassie was a megastar in the 1950s, watching over her 7-year-old boy Timmy...but was her act lifted from the first canine movie star back in 1905?
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One of America’s most prolific female serial killers was Aileen Wuornos. She admitted to killing at least seven men before she was executed in 2002. Her life was depicted in the 2003 movie Monster. But how did the little girl, tormented by schoolmates as "the cigarette pig," become a monster?
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Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s long-time property in Palm Beach, gets a lot of press these days. But it’s an architectural marvel. The thing is, its past is way more glittering than its present. It was built in the roaring 1920s by a young woman who was, for most of her life, the richest woman in America. This is about where her money came from and how she spent it.
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The murder of movie star Lana Turner’s mobster boyfriend by her 14-year-old daughter was the biggest story in Hollywood in the late 1950s. But did young Cheryl really wield the knife? Or did she take the hit for her mother?
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Two of the most famous inventors of the late 19th and early 20th century were Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. They were great friends and shared a strong belief in the afterlife. That connection led Ford to obtain a test tube from Edison’s son…allegedly containing Edison’s dying breath.
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Hard to imagine loving a politician so much that a third of the entire U.S. populace shows up to watch his funeral train go by and millions file past his open coffin. But sadly, Abe Lincoln was decomposing before their eyes. His two-week journey home was on a train meant to be the 1860s version of Air Force One, and his only trip on it was after his death.
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44 years ago this month, the song Superfreak was released by funk legend Rick James. But success didn’t sit well with him .. eventually leading to prison and an early death.
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April 15th will be the 160th anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. He was noted for having a personality that was a unique combination of strength and determination, softened by incredible sensitivity to the pain of others. So, he was aware of the passions that influenced Americans on both sides during the Civil War. Did that knowledge and sensitivity allow him to predict the events of his own murder?
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Robert Downey Jr. has had an amazing career—huge movies as a young actor and even bigger ones in his 40s and 50s. But in between, he spent serious time in prison on drug charges. How did he find sobriety?
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The 113th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic is just weeks away, but the disaster still resonates. Two of the 710 survivors were tiny little boys, traveling with their father under an assumed name...after he kidnapped them from his ex-wife. They were the only children to survive without a parent or guardian that night. The older son, just 4 at the time, lived until 2001 when he was 92. He shared their amazing story.
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The Boston Marathon is next month, but women weren’t officially allowed to run in it until 1972. Officials said it would shock a woman’s body to run more than one and a half miles at a time! In 1966 one woman began to change all that by sneaking into the race wearing her brother’s shorts and a new pair of men’s running shoes since they didn’t make them for women until a dozen years later. But Bobbi Gib...
What’s the real story behind the love affair and long delayed marriage between King Charles and Queen Camilla? Their love affair predated his marriage to Princess Diana by almost 20 years. But British rules about virginity caused one of the biggest scandals in history. This is how it all came down.
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Patty Steele