T minus 20
The year is 2005... Anakin turns to the dark side, YouTube makes its debut and we’re all couch-jumping for Maria, McDreamy and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo… T minus 20, rewind to this week in history 20 years ago with Joe and Mel.
Episodes
Rewind to 25 September to 1 October 2005 — when emo kids were discovering top hats, Fergie was making “lady lumps” a phrase and Bali gets hit by bombings again.
🪖 Abu Ghraib’s dark shadow
Lynndie England was found guilty in a military court for her role in the prisoner abuse scandal. The photos had already shocked the world, but her conviction cemented her as the face of the U.S. military’s biggest disgrace of th...
Rewind to 18–24 September 2005
🌪️ Rita raises hell
Just three weeks after Katrina, Hurricane Rita stormed in as a Category 5 beast before slamming Texas and Louisiana as a Category 3. The real nightmare? The evacuation. Millions jammed Houston’s highways for up to 24 hours, gas ran out, buses caught fire, and tragically more than 100 people died — most not from the storm itself, but from the chaos of trying to es...
Rewind to 11–18 September 2005
⚡ Lights out in LA
Millions of Angelenos suddenly found themselves trapped in elevators, stuck at dead traffic lights, and clutching their Nokia flip phones as a worker’s “oopsie” cut the wrong line. Terrorism fears? Nah — just Culver City’s clumsiest electrician turning LA into the world’s largest candlelit dinner for two hours.
🎢 Disney goes dim sum
Hong Kong Disneyland opened its gates —...
Rewind to 4 September 2005 to 10 September 2005
🌀 Katrina fallout
The floodwaters were barely receding in New Orleans and already the finger-pointing had begun. FEMA was roasted for its snail-paced response, Bush’s leadership was under fire and TV screens were filled with images of stranded residents that turned a natural disaster into a national reckoning.
🎨 Art attack!
In Austria a woman pulled out a jackknife and sl...
Rewind to 27 August – 3 September 2005 ⏪
🌪️ Katrina’s wrath
Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast with catastrophic force, flooding 80% of New Orleans when levees failed. What followed was a disaster of human error as much as nature’s fury — FEMA fumbled, the Superdome became a nightmare and trust in the system was non existent. But there were glimmers of humanity too: the Cajun Navy, hospital staff who refused to...
Rewind to 21–27 August 2005 🎙️
💊 (not so) model behaviour. Michelle Leslie went from catwalks to courtrooms when Bali police “found” two little pills in her Gucci bag. What followed? A media circus of headscarves, bribe rumours and a prison stint that ended almost as quickly as her career. From Schapelle to the Bali Nine, it was peak Aussie-drama-abroad season.
🎹 The piano man unmasked. Remember t...
Rewind to 14–20 August 2005 — the week where rockstars went back to school, storms turned Toronto into Waterworld and Kansas decided BTK’s future was forever in prison.
🪓 BTK gets the book thrown at him. Dennis Rader, the church-going, cub scout–leading *serial killer next door*, is sentenced to 175 years without parole. His floppy disk blunder remains the ultimate self-own in true crime history.
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Rewind to 7 to 13 August 2005.It’s the week the UN got scandalous, Shane Warne made history and a Playboy Mansion reality show somehow counted as TV. Plus: Jessica Simpson washes a car… aggressively. Let’s ride.
🛢️ UN scandal gets greasy. The third Volcker Report into the Oil-for-Food Program dropped and it was messier than a deep-fried mars bar. Top UN official Benon Sevan was accused of pocketing bribes, S...
Rewind to 31 July to 6 August 2005
🛑 No smoking on the grid. The EU bans tobacco advertising across borders, sending Formula 1 teams scrambling for cash and leaving Marlboro-branded Ferraris gasping for air.
💀 Skulls just dropped. Scientists in Georgia unearth a 1.8 million-year-old human skull that throws the whole “big brain = better human” theory into chaos.
👟 Three stripes, one flop. Adidas buys Reebok for $3.8 b...
Rewind to 24 July 2005 to 30 July 2005
This week in 2005, Rihanna made her Diwali riddim-fuelled debut, Hulk Hogan became the ultimate helicopter dad and Birmingham took a surprise spin on the tornado ride. We also hit Splendour just as it pivoted to electro and watched Canadian scientists crush Bigfoot dreams with one tuft of bison hair.
🌪️ Birmingham gets twistered. A rare urban tornado tears through E...
Rewind to 17 to 23 July 2005, where tattoo regrets were permanent, burlesque entered the mainstream and Crazy Frog somehow got a record deal.
💣 Bombs fail, panic doesn’t. Two weeks after 7/7, four bombs fail to fully detonate on London transport. No deaths, but the fear is real. Cue evacuations, manhunts and media chaos.
🚨 Shot by mistake. Jean Charles de Menezes is tragically killed by police, mis...
Rewind to 10 July 2005 to 16 July 2005: the week NASA stalled, Potter fans sobbed, Johnny Depp traumatised children and WorldCom made Enron look like amateurs.
🚀 To infinity… or not quite. NASA’s big “return to space” mission hits pause thanks to a dodgy fuel sensor. Ground control to boomers: your tech’s showing its age.
🍫 Wonky Wonka energy. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory tops the box office,...
Rewind to 3 July 2005 to 9 July 2005 and buckle in, because the chaos this week is coming at you from space, underground, and straight out of the Hot 97 parking lot.
💥 NASA punches a comet. Because smashing things is how science happens. Deep Impact lived up to the movie name as NASA slammed a probe into Comet Tempel 1 at 22,800 mph to see what was hiding beneath. Spoiler: space dust, ice, organic gunk, and some exist...
Rewind to 26 June 2005 to 2 July 2005
🎧 Podcasting goes mainstream. iTunes officially jumps on the podcast bandwagon and suddenly your weird uncle with a headset mic thinks he’s the next Ira Glass. Everyone’s got a podcast now — including us — but we promise zero toilet wine reviews.
⚖️ Grokster gets busted. The Supreme Court serves up a harsh reminder that building your business on pirated copies o...
Rewind to 19 June to 25 June 2005
This week, we’re talking digital disasters, newspaper nightmares and sports meltdowns so epic they’re still rage-tweeted about today.
🧻 Wikitorial wipeout. The LA Times tried letting the public edit their editorials. What they got instead? Porn, profanity and chaos in 36 hours. A short-lived democracy, quickly replaced by Ctrl+Alt+Nope.
🐀 Rat vs nation. One rat...
Rewind to 12 to 18 June 2005, when Mike Tyson retired mid-fight, Brangelina launches with explosives, Etsy was born and Florence Aubenas emerged from the shadows of war.
🧨 Mr. & Mrs. scandal. Brad and Angelina play married assassins in Mr. & Mrs. Smith but the real fireworks were off-screen. Enter: the Brangelina era. Exit: Jen’s peace of mind.
🕊️ Florence freed. French journalist Florence...
Rewind to 5 to 11 June 2005 when Crazy Frogs topped the charts, Coldplay went full galaxy-brain and a Chinese spy scandal had Aussie politicians sweating harder than a velour tracksuit in summer.
🕵️♂️ Defection drama.Two Chinese officials blew the whistle on a massive spy network operating in Australia. Allegations included intimidation, surveillance and student kidnappings.
📦 Powder panic.White ...
Rewind to 29 May to 4 June 2005 — a week of anonymous sources, screaming chefs and beauties meeting geeks.
🕵️ Deep Throat outs himself.After three decades of whispers, Watergate’s ultimate whistleblower was revealed: 91-year-old Mark Felt, former FBI bigwig and reluctant pop culture icon. And yes, the code name came from a 1970s porn film. Journalism? Still horny, apparently.
🍳 Hell’s Kitchen is se...
Rewind to 22 May to 28 May 2005 — the boogie board that broke Australia made headlines, Carrie Underwood hit her high note and Darth Vader finally got his glow-up.
🧳 Schapelle sentenced.The verdict that divided the country. Schapelle Corby was found guilty of smuggling 4.1kg of weed into Bali, sentenced to 20 years and instantly became a tabloid obsession. Whether you believed she was framed or just very chi...
Rewind to 15 May to 21 May 2005.From a Eurovision fever dream to a rollercoaster that needed its own weather forecast, this week brought chaos, confessions and comeback queens. Kylie faced a life-changing diagnosis with absolute grace, Britney overshared via camcorder and Mariah said we belong together and we absolutely did.
🎤 Britney, camcorders and career chaos.Britney & Kevin: Chaotic premiered and im...
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