series ordinary people who changed the world. bestselling author brad meltser. good to see you. steve: i love i saw him in the green room walt disney was from kansas city, right? turns out missouri but i got the town wrong. he is from a tiny little town that is one of those places where neighbors help neighbors. there is a train running right through the middle of the town. and in the little of town of missouri was his happy place. so we all see disneyland and we all see disney world. what walt disney was actually building one of the great secrets about him is he was building his hometown complete with a train running down the middle. it was his happy place. that s the theme of the book for kids to find their happy place and, you know, for us it was to give my kids better heros to look up to like walt disney. steve: the image i m holding right here is looks like main street u.s.a. it s the town in missouri he grew up in. that s exactly right.
wasn t easy for him. it was hard. first business failed. father didn t like him drawing so much. it was his aunt who said keep drawing. steve: mickey mouse, his most famous character, if walt disney had his way his name wouldn t be mick can i. he comes up with great idea for this character named mortimer mouse. his wife says mortimer? hshesays that s a horrible name. why don t we name him micky. and that s how the get mic mickey mouse. if you get back up again, that s how you fly. steve: it s a fantastic message to kids. the new book is called i am walt disney also you have i am maria curry. brad, thank you so much. thank you so much. steve: 7:30 in new york city. congressman from florida brian mast lost both legs in a bomb blast in afghanistan. he opened the first congressional office inside the va med center.
you got to celebration columbus day. will it soon be named indigenous people day? christopher columbus is now becoming a target. indigenous people day may be the new columbus day. not if italians have anything to say about it. listen to the angst across the country. the truth needs to come out. columbus had committed many atrocities and was the author of the transatlantic slave trade. he led and participated in the annihilation of 3,000 indigenous people. brian: he also discovered a brand-new world and did something nobody else did and changed the world forever. brad meltser is an author of i am sacagawea and i am ghandi.
will say that whoever they would brought up and whoever they captured at garrett s farm, that s whose bone fragment they have. that s the best evidence we have. whoever they captured that day is the person we think is john wilke zoo booth. you ll get the answer if dna is good. do you think edwin booth s dna would match that of john wil wilkes dna if it s possible to extract it from these bone fragments? i really do not know, and that s why we would like to continue, you know, looking for the dna samples and my feeling is that whatever the outcome is i would be fine with it. history should be as accurate as possible. brad, i mean, is it possible that john wilkes booth actually got away with it, lived 40 years
buried in john wilkes grave in baltimore. to explain it all. brad meltser is here, hosts the history channel s brad meltzer decoded which just aired an episode on john wilks booth and joining us from rhode island is a descendant of edwin booth, lois trebisacci. she appeared on the program learning how she first learned of her blood line from her mother. without skipping a beet she said you re going to be learning this in school. they are going to say that he died in the barn. he did not die in the barn. he lived for many, many years. so she told you that blockbuster piece of information right away? yes, yes. i had no idea that john wilkes booth had survived. lois, did you hear the same story from your family about john wilkes booth?