politics are, you are the former president, you write me a letter, i'll send you a free book. >> brad meltzer guest. first call. maryland, go ahead, please. >> caller: yes, brad, i wanted to thank you for creating such a wonderful book. i think it's extremely important that people really understand that, you know, the heros are not just the people that are famous. but i like that you did put in people who are not famous. and kids would have an opportunity, not only your son, but anyone who's giving this gift to their family to let them know that ordinary people not only can do extraordinary things, but also be truly extraordinary. by pursuing their goals, dreams, going after it, trying to make a difference. i want to thank you for this. that's something that i share with my family. >> thank you. >> host: who's your hero? >> caller: my hero is my mother. she was an african-american woman from the south, had a nice education, and vice president of institutional trading is what my brother, and i have my masters. >> guest: and that's exactly right. you know, the thing is that we all know and say

. >> brad meltzer, why an nonfiction? >> well, the truth was, is it's for my son, and eight years ago onfo the night my son was born i said, i'm going to write a booki that lasts his whole life. and ib was coming back from the hospital, and at that great moment when you t can dreamo anything for your child, yourin child can be anything. can be the president, can be an nice person, can be a generous person. and with all that idealism, i said, i'm going to write a booke that's going to last his whole book. i came home and started writingo rules for him to live by. yeah, there you go, pictures of it.n i said, one, you'll love god. i said, two, be nice to the fat kid in class. you know, things i just thoughti were important for him to know, but the truth was i knew nothing about being a father. i knew nothing. so a friend of mine then told me this amazing story about the wright brothers. and every time the wright brothers would go out to fly their plane, they'd bring enough materials for multiple crashesbi which means every t

her outward message cloaks a much darker meaning, a coded symbol meant for a chosen few. >> brad meltzero we think she is, brad, tell us who's lady liberty? >> if you want to ask me, a sane human being, it's one of the greatest symbols in america. but if you go to google right now, and you put in statue of liberty and the word satan of all things, all these things come up that she's a trojan horse of satanic messages. that's nonsense to me. but where does that story get started in and on decoded, every week on history, we try to figure out the answer. and tonight we actually do find the answer of what are the secret symbols. because the amazing part is there are hidden symbols built into the statue of liberty, there is greater meaning in here structure, but it's not the meaning you think. >> is some of it in plain sight, we can all see it but maybe we don't realize what we're looking at? >> yeah, exactly. when you look at the creator of the statue of liberty, the head of the statue of liberty is actually based on his mother, the body is based on his mistress. but when you look at the sym

i had a chance to speak with brad meltzer and ask him about these tiny numbers and letters that historiansona lisa. >> listen, it doesn't take having your own tv show to know that lv stands for lee owe n le da vinci. >> but he never made it that easy. he wrote backwards and in mys. it's incorrodible how he on stured things. this is one of the greatest mans in history. this a man that invented the submarine before anyone could fathom such a thing. invented a flying device before anyone could even think about air travel. this is what people forget. when you decode this stuff, everyone wants to run in. this is ha we do every week on our tv show. before you decode stuff, you have to figure out what it says first. that's going to be the first part of the puzzle. before you start pulling it apart, you have to make sure you know what the cover of the puzzle looks like. >> you're one individual who knows da vinci better than even some of the other experts out there. why was he so wrapped up in these secret messages? >> you know, this is one of those -- you can see in this story they want to now ex