Backstory With Larry Potash

Brothers Michael and Jeffrey Gentile say their childhood was a cross between The Wonder Years and The Sopranos. While he never got into a life of crime, their dad's friends included some of Chicago's most infamous mobsters.

Mickey Mouse may be the biggest paradox in pop culture: people love him, but know nothing about him.You may have heard Mickey was first drawn by Walt Disney 90 years ago as he rode a train, desperate to save his company and inspired by pet mice he had years ago. Well, that’s a myth. This is the true Backstory of Mickey Mouse, and how a simple, whistling cartoon grew into a global icon. 

Recruited by an eccentric millionaire to search for hidden messages in Shakespeare’s works, Elizebeth Smith Friedman became a pioneering code breaker who took on the Nazis and the mob. Her story has been buried by secrecy and sexism for nearly a century - until now. Watch this full story on the Backstory TV show.

On the morning of Oct. 30, 1928, Elfrieda Knaak was discovered in the furnace room of Lake Bluff's Village Hall, naked and with her hands and feet burned to the bone. Her death was ruled a suicide, but how could a woman stick her own legs, arms and head in a furnace?