The Backstory with Patty Steele

The riots in France last week were all about the same things that caused the American Revolution in 1776 as well as the French Revolution in 1789. Distrust and disappointment in how the government treats us. In France 250 years ago, it was actually a stolen diamond necklace that began the downfall of the monarchy.

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What is we love about the blood and gore of a great horror movie or story? And where and when did that spooky interest start? Turns out we’re programmed to love terror . . and Hollywood has made a bundle off of it.

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How does someone go from being a working class kid to being a billionaire before he’s 40? This is Mark Cuban’s story!

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We all know the term "planned obsolescence”. But where did it begin? We head back to the light bulb manufacturers of the early 1900s to see where basic needs and business collided, and how nothing has ever been the same since.

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It’s Columbus Day this Monday . . also called Indigenous People’s Day. But it begs the question, who really “discovered” America? 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 Real Patty Steele

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Watching the state of Georgia and their botched attempt to execute murderer Christa Pike this past week has been pretty cringy. Only about 1% of murderers put to death in the U.S. are female. It brought to mind one of America’s most prolific female serial killers, Aileen Wuornos. She admitted to killing at least 7 men, before she was executed in 2002. Her life was depicted in the 2003 movie Monster. But . . how did the little girl tormented by school mates as “the cigarette pig” . . become a monster?

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Death . . the word makes us uneasy but we’re all sort of intrigued by it, thus our love of true crime, horror, mysteries, and graveyards. Death is the one thing we all have to face that we simply can’t rationally explain. Going back thousands of years it was the same for all humans. How do we celebrate a life . . . and dispose of the body?

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We’re sort of living in a time when finger pointing has become a huge spectator sport. Accuse somebody you don’t like or agree with of something, and you can destroy their life. But human beings have a long history of vicious finger pointing. Case in point, the Salem witch trials of 1692.

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A lot of people want sex . . but they don’t always want babies. That’s been the story of human sexuality for thousands of years. But the pill has only been around for about 65 years. So . . what did folks do to enjoy sex while minimizing the chance of procreation? Think poison plants, animal dung, lemon cups, and even Lysol. Not all of it paints a pretty picture!

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Born rich, titled, and impossibly handsome . . a British lord’s life falls apart and he chooses murder. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. The 7th Earl of Lucan, disappeared over 50 years ago after murdering his children’s nanny, having mistaken her for his ex wife. Did his aristocratic friends help him vanish into a new life? This story may remind you of the Netflix show “The Beast in Me.” But this time, the killer escapes.

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We try to imagine what everyday life was like for folks living a few hundred years ago or even longer. But sometimes, we forget to take into account the simplest things . . like brushing your teeth or replacing them if you ran into issues. What did they use before toothpaste or worse yet, implants? It’s not a pretty picture and it will probably make you grit your teeth. 

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When there’s an outbreak of some sort, like the flu or COVID, we all wonder if we’re going to get it. But some of us are more compelled to think we’ve actually got it when people around us show symptoms. Now, imagine being overcome with the urge to keep moving your body, as if you have bugs in your veins. There were outbreaks of dancing mania throughout medieval times. It sounds festive but it wasn’t pleasant.

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25 years ago the 9/11 terrorist attacks killed almost 3000 people. It was a horrific moment in our history but as in so many cases, heroes were born in the midst of tragedy. Beverly Eckert was speaking to her husband on his cell when she heard the South Tower collapse on top of him. She advocated for 9/11 families . . until she died in another tragedy less than 8 years later.

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Imagine trying to describe our technology to someone from 1926. Now imagine trying to defend our tech to someone from 2126! Most importantly, how is this evolution impacting our brains and our bodies?

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Imagine walking out your front door and not being able to see where you’re stepping because the air is so thick with yellow, greasy smog. This happened in London for 5 days back in 1952 and it killed 12,000 people!

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As we watch the royal family feud in the UK escalate, we’re reminded of our own sibling rivalries. Of course, theirs plays out in the media for our questionable entertainment. But William and Harry are just the latest in a long line of royal family battles that frequently turned violent. 

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You don’t have to be crazy about cats to be at least a little bit fascinated with them, hissing, murder mittens, and all. Great writers like Hemingway, Twain, and Dickens as well as folks like Lincoln, Churchill, Einstein, and Nightingale adored them. As did music icons like Freddie Mercury and John Lennon. They all felt cats gave them one thing . . peace.

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Believing in yourself is key to success. One of the best examples of that is Steven Spielberg. At the age of 18 he sneaked onto the Universal Studios lot and literally created a job for himself while nobody was looking. Eventually they noticed him, paid him, and he never left.

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The angelic sounds of choirs from 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries often featured the angelic voices of boy sopranos. But sometimes those angelic voices came from full grown male bodies. They were the castrati, little boys castrated so they’d grow up with powerful soprano voices. Where did they come from and why was this done? Just one castrati left a voice recording

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Love a good pirate story? This is a real life story of the most successful pirate in history. Black Bart Roberts was a gentleman who reluctantly became a pirate . . but who ultimately was a cold blooded killer as he plundered 400 ships in just 3 years, 10 times as many as Blackbeard! He was finally killed in battle at just 39 and it was the death knell for the Golden Age of Piracy.

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We’ve all dealt with scammers or hackers when it comes to our business or personal info. It can be mildly irritating . .or horrifying depending on what they get. One of the earliest and best hackers was Kevin Mitnick. But his life did an astounding 180 after he was finally caught and convicted.

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Almost 40 years ago, the roof of a jetliner blew off at 24,000 feet. Amazingly, after a harrowing 13 minutes, the pilots managed to land the plane safely. All but one person survived. This was the flight that changed airline safety forever.

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We’re all pretty fascinated with the summer blockbuster ”The Odyssey” right now. So it’s a good time to revisit an unusual story about Socrates, Homer’s compatriot. Although he was born several hundred years later, Socrates admired Homer. But he was a different sort of guy. 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, this iconic Greek philosopher, Socrates, was exactly that kind of big mouth 2400 years ago in Athens . . where democracy was just being originated. Problem is, he angered the wr...

A total solar eclipse is coming on August 12th. They're awe inspiring. But imagine it’s a normal day in ancient times and suddenly the sun begins to get dimmer and dimmer. Is it the end of the world? Are we being punished by Mother Nature? These folks had no way to explain an eclipse so they turned it into stories, myths, warnings, and eventually, science.

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Woody Harrelson has been outrageously successful as an actor. But the story of his father is even more unbelievable. A charming hustler and gambler, Charles Harrelson was also an armed robber, a hitman and convicted killer, and he claimed to be involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.

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The term muse seems pretty straight forward when it comes to rock & roll. Some of the most enduring love songs like Layla, Something, and Woman . . have been inspired by these women. But each had very complicated and very different kinds of relationships with stars like Eric Clapton, George Harrison, John Lennon, and Freddie Mercury.

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Lots of folks, including a majority in Congress, want to see year round daylight saving time. But it actually has been tried before. The results were not what you’d expect.

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You think life among the big shots in 19th century Washington DC was all about restraint and honor? Think again. Behind the scenes there were actually plenty of illicit affairs. We're revisiting a titillating story that involves some powerful players . . and a very young wife. At its center is the son of Francis Scott Key, who wrote the Star Spangled Banner. The affair led to a murder that was the talk of pre Civil War Washington . . and became the first case in which the defense used a plea of temporary insanity. What would it take to drive you to...

Again this summer . . we’ve been dealing with smokey skies in North America mostly from Canadian wildfires. But the deadliest wildfire in U.S. history happened in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, in 1871. It killed about 2500 people. But nobody gave it the attention it deserved either in fighting it or reporting on it, because it happened the same day as the Great Chicago Fire. These are personal stories from people who lived through this inferno.

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Hard to imagine that a little country hotel could have been the launching pad for the 30 ton device called ENIAC, that completely changed our world . . . the computer. This is the remarkable story of how a small haunted colonial inn became the unlikely birthplace of modern computing.

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Watching TV shows or movies, you'd think big jewelry heists depend on all sorts of high-tech gadgets. But it turns out, some of the biggest thefts in history actually relied on one thing: simplicity. But a simple mistake, like a half-eaten sandwich, can foil the perfect plan.

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Stevie Nicks has been in the spotlight this week after performing at the Madison Square Garden wedding of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelcie. But . . that wasn’t just an entertainment decision on the bride and groom’s part. This is the behind the scenes story.
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The time honored saying goes . . never discuss politics or religion in polite company. That seems truer today than ever. But is it? You think politics breaks up family ties now more than ever? It’s hard to believe that, like us, politics could fracture a Founding Father’s family. Ben Franklin was incredibly close to his son . . until William, then NJ’s royal governor, declared his allegiance to the King and went to prison for it. He and Ben never spoke again.

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It’s the nation’s 250th birthday! It’s a time to celebrate . . . like the Founding Fathers, who certainly knew how to tip a few back. This is a look at their drinking habits. And it’s next on The Backstory.
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As we head out for our summer vacations, some of us are lucky enough to be headed to the ocean. Blue skies, sunshine, blue water to the horizon. But there's always that nagging fear, as Jaws taught us, that underneath those frothing white waves, sharks may be lurking. This is the story of the deadliest shark attack in history.

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Watching the NBA Finals, a Lot of Us Became Mesmerized by the Size of These Athletes. A Lot of Those Guys Are 7 Feet or More. But Imagine Somebody Who Was a Full 2 Feet Taller Than Those Players. This Is Robert Wadlow’s Life.

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We all love The Wizard of Oz, right? So why was it a box office flop when it came out? And why was production so horrible for the cast and crew? It’s a story of what people put up with (and still put up with) to make it in Hollywood.

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This time of year, we're reminded that freedom is what America is all about. But as recently as 1972, there was still a living person who had been born into slavery. And another man lived to share his story of the very first Juneteenth . . . when freedom was finally brought to every state in the Union.

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We know over the course of decades, centuries, and millennia landscapes change... sometimes dramatically. But how can entire towns literally disappear overnight?

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Do you realize it was only a little over 140 years ago that the world began to adopt standardized time zones? You could take a 10am train to another town and arrive at 9:50am . . because most towns had their own clocks. For thousands of years we basically looked at the sun to tell time but transportation and communications changed everything. This is how they did it.

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