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The Backstory: Stealing George Washington’s head
George Washington’s 293rd birthday is this weekend, and his death in 1799 was a shock to the brand-new United States of America. Everybody loved him …
1 year, 4 months ago
The Backstory: Lucky Luciano: From mob boss to war hero
How does a guy go from running with gangs on the Lower East Side to reinventing the mafia to going to prison as a convicted felon…to finally working …
1 year, 4 months ago
The Backstory: My bloody valentine!
Emotional attachment is thousands of years old, but it actually started off with apes! For humans, Valentine’s Day started off as a blood-soaked paga…
1 year, 4 months ago
The Backstory: Did Shakespeare steal the Romeo and Juliet story?
It’s called the most famous love story of all time: William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. But was it a true story or did it come completely from Sh…
1 year, 4 months ago
The Backstory: The real American psycho
The Wisconsin countryside in autumn during the 1950s sounds idyllic. But it was the scene of a horrifying series of murders and body-snatching cases.…
1 year, 4 months ago
The Backstory: How one woman helped ignite the Civil War
Who wrote the best-selling book in the U.S. in the 1800s? Why was she attacked from both sides for her story? And finally, how did she come to write …
1 year, 4 months ago
The Backstory: Nxivm: A Hollywood sex cult
Hollywood, cults, sex, and crime. It all seems like the perfect set up for a Netflix multi-season series. But this is the real story of the rich and …
1 year, 4 months ago
The Backstory (Replay): A middle-class kid rises to the top of the ad world
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 fut…
1 year, 4 months ago
The Backstory: The Mariana Trench: A hundred horrible ways to die
Explorers are a special breed—fear of the unknown and of the awful possibilities of failure don’t seem to deter them. Perfect example: the handful of…
1 year, 5 months ago
The Backstory: Beyond the Hamilton duel: Aaron Burr’s rise and fall
Some people are wildly talented but just can’t get out of the way of their own ego and ambition. Take Aaron Burr. He destroyed his political career b…
1 year, 5 months ago