T minus 20

🧻 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. 🦇 Batman begins again. Christopher Nolan ditches the bat-nipples and gives us trauma, ninjas and a Batmobile that could eat your SUV. Christian Bale growls, Katie Holmes dodges bats and superhe...

🐶 Who’s a cloned boy?  Snuppy the Afghan hound becomes the world’s first cloned dog, born after 1,000 embryos, 123 surrogates and more ethical debates than a philosophy major on Red Bull. 🎤 Mariah's not-so-comeback.  The Emancipation of Mimi drops and Mariah Carey reminds us she never left — she just needed a minute, some stiletto cardio and 14 guest producers. We Belong Together = world do...

🧃 Belle Gibson enters Mel’s comments section In one of the most unexpectedly cursed timeline moments of the year, Mel gets fact-checked by Belle Gibson — yes, that Belle Gibson — after she jumps into Mel’s Instagram comments to correct something she said. A wellness grifter policing accuracy is peak internet irony and a reminder that sometimes the comments section really is the wild west. No gree...

📹 A dating fail that created YouTube Before it hosted cat videos, K-pop fancams and the entire cultural output of Gen Z, YouTube began as… a dating site. In 2005 its founders uploaded a “hot or not but for love” concept that failed spectacularly, pivoted to “upload anything you like” and accidentally built the biggest video platform on Earth. From grainy webcams to billion-dollar buyouts, we revi...

🌴 Summer mode, nostalgia maxed out We’re hitting pause on the weekly time machine to bring you a sun-soaked sampler platter of the most unhinged, delightful and ‘I can’t believe that actually happened’ moments from this year’s T Minus 20 episodes. Grab a Frosty Fruit, slip-slop-slap and settle in — because this is the year in rewind, but make it chaotic, sparkly and aggressively early-2000s. 🎸 R...

Rewind to 11 December 2005 to 17 December 2005 🏖️ Cronulla hits boiling point This week in 2005, Australia watches in shock as long-simmering tensions in Cronulla erupt into one of the country’s most confronting racial flashpoints. Years of beachside friction, talkback radio fury and mass-forwarded SMS hype collide on a scorching December Sunday as thousands gather at North Cronulla. What begins a...

Rewind to 4 December 2005 to 10 December 2005 🧪 Two Aussies, one Nobel and a beaker of bacteria On a snowy Stockholm night, Dr Robin Warren and Professor Barry Marshall rewrite medical history — and humiliate decades of gastro dogma — by winning the Nobel Prize for proving stomach ulcers are caused by bacteria , not stress or spicy food. Marshall seals the legend by drinking Helicobacter pylori l...

Rewind to 27 November 2005 to 3 December 2005 🧬 A new face, a new future In France, surgeons pull off the world’s first partial face transplant on Isabelle Dinoire — a 15-hour medical marathon involving nerves, muscles, arteries and a whole lot of “please don’t sneeze right now” precision. The media goes full Face/Off panic, ethics boards light up like Christmas trees and suddenly everyone has a...

🇩🇪 Merkel makes history Angela Merkel is sworn in as Germany’s first female chancellor and first from the former East. A grand coalition deal ends the election deadlock. Quiet power beats loud politics. 🎈 Candy meets physics A giant M&M’s balloon whacks a light pole at the Macy’s Parade, injuring two spectators. NYC tightens wind rules and retires the balloon. Thanksgiving TV gets an unforget...

🧬 The man who (maybe) cured HIV Before ‘manifesting’ was a TikTok buzzword, Andrew Stimpson from London apparently manifested the impossible — curing himself of HIV. After testing positive in 2002, he shocked doctors three years later with a clean bill of health. No miracle drug, no experimental treatment — just vitamins, good vibes, and confusion. The world collectively said, “Wait, what?” while...

Rewind to 6 November 2005 to 12 November 2005 🌠 Fireballs or flying saucers Europe looks up, panics, phones the cops. Slow, glowing Taurids put on a show that screams UFO vibes then science says “comet crumbs, babes.” ✈️ Long-haul flex Boeing’s 777-200LR Worldliner goes Hong Kong → London non-stop in 22h42m. Record set, jet lag sponsored by GE90 engines. 🩸 Outback nightmare fuel Wolf Creek claws...

🎧 Rewind to 30 October – 5 November 2005 🎃 The great pumpkin arms race New England’s finest farmers flexed their green thumbs at the Topsfield Fair, where a 1,314-lb orange beast stole the show. People clapped. Kids squealed. Somewhere, a guy whispered “that’s a big-ass pumpkin.” Simpler times — when the heaviest thing online was a JPEG of your harvest. 🐎 Makybe Diva’s mic-drop moment Flemingto...

Rewind to 23–30 October 2005 🎸 💀 The King still reigns Elvis may have left the building, but he sure didn’t leave the bank. Forbes crowned him the top-earning dead celebrity — again — raking in a cool US$45 million thanks to Graceland tours, reissues and endless blue suede merch. Even in the afterlife, Elvis was out-grossing the living. 🚭 Britain stubs it out Tony Blair’s government finally dec...

Rewind to 16 October 2005 to 22 October 2005 🕋 Million Man March 2.0 Louis Farrakhan’s Millions More rally hits D.C., calling for unity and self-reliance after Katrina. His fire-and-brimstone speech slams Bush but sparks fresh controversy. Big turnout, smaller legacy — more sequel than revolution. ⚖️ Saddam takes the stand Iraq puts Saddam Hussein on trial for crimes against humanity. He mocks th...

Rewind to 9 October 2005 to 15 October 2005 🚀 China goes full space cowboy China’s Shenzhou 6 mission blasts off, sending two taikonauts into orbit for nearly five days — a major flex in the global space race. It’s their first two-man crew, the first time anyone’s used the orbital module as living space and a huge leap toward their future space station plans.  🎭 Harold Pinter gets the Nobel nod...

🧑‍⚖️ Supreme Court Soap Harriet Miers is tapped to replace Sandra Day O’Connor and America collectively Googles “Who?” A loyal Bush insider with zero judicial experience tries to sell a “practicing lawyer’s perspective.” Conservatives grumble she’s not conservative enough, liberals cry cronyism and the vibes are awkward. A case study in how not to roll out a lifetime gig. 🌍 Quake Lines Snap A 7....

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 bigge...

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...

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 Dis...

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 pul...

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 sta...

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...

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...

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 pocketi...

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. Adida...