That's Old News

Hayley has... issues... I think that's safe to say. But what better way to expose those issues than to shove a microphone in her face and just letter her speak about all the weird things that gives her that history horn. This time around we're going back to the ways of old and how we would punish criminals for their crimes or extract information from persons of interest and putting them in...

What do bubble wrap, the slinky toy, and Viagra have in common? Apart from an entertaining night at home alone, they all share in the fact that they were not originally invented to be what they eventually came to be! If anyone remembers an old episode of Hayley's, you may have learned that the chainsaw - yes, that tool used to level and topple towering trees - was first invented to help ease t...

In the last episode we saw Napoleon make an uncharacteristic mistake with his inability to win a decisive victory over the Russians at Eylau, allowing the Russians to retreat and fight another day. While they would be found again and defeated at Friedland, the campaign was a bloody affair. Napoleon won yet another victory over the coalitions formed against him, but not one without cost. And it is...

“We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.” - Charles Bukowski. There have been quite a lot of deaths through history, (I know, it's a shocking revelation to me too!) but a lot of the ones we read about evoke certain emotions of us. National figures fighting in defiant last stands for their cause can invoke feelings of great national pride...

When you think of some of the greatest footballers to ever play the game, who comes to mind? Do you think of recent players at the pinnacle of their game like Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo? Do you perhaps turn the clock back and look to the legends of the game like Pelé or Diego Maradona? Or do you instead look to those players who perform crucial roles but often go overlooked like Michael Car...

Born 21 September 1971, David Phillip Vetter was born with a hereditary disease which would affect his entire life - severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID). It is a rare disease that involves defective antibody responses and results in an impaired immune system. The immune system is so compromised that it is effectively considered absent, leading to patients suffering immensely from something as...

Napoleon, the victor of Austerlitz and conqueror of the Holy Roman Empire, had little time to rest on his incredible achievements. While the Russians were resoundingly defeated in December 1805, they were not quite out of the war just yet. With enough space to retreat back into friendly territory, they were set to regroup and strike again - but without allies on the continent, this would be a diff...

We love a good quiz. Is there anything to be said for a quiz? They can be some great fun. Get some friends together, pull up a real doozy of a question sheet, and see which of your friends is the most prolific and knee deep in the lore of My Little Pony... just me? That's embarrassing... But here at That's Old News, we had to look up how to spell "fun" in the dictionary just so I...

Have you ever seen those crazy quizzes online where the website asks you what your shoe size is and it can tell you what figures from history you'd invite to your birthday party? Just me? Well, they exist, and we did two of them! The first quiz is far more serious, asking us some tough questions but with terrible answers to determine which historical dictator we are. Now if you were to ask Hay...

The entire point of this episode was an attempt by Conor to mentally break Keego, and it can confidently be concluded that he succeeded in spectacular fashion. Deadliest Warrior was... a show. That's the nicest thing I can think to say about it. It sought to pit history's deadliest warriors (go figure) against each other in an attempt to determine who was history's... well, deadliest w...

Napoleon Bonaparte, now Emperor Napoleon I of the First French Empire, is under attack once again. Britain, in its continued strategy of undermining the French at every turn on the continental European mainland, has formed a new coalition - now the Third Coalition. Austria, Russia, and Sweden now join Britain in their efforts to finally put an end to the bloody French Revolution and oust the new e...

Alternative history scenarios are so much fun. With a range of well thought out scenarios where one key focal point in our timeline changes which entirely alters the course of history and leads to the near impossible becoming increasingly likely. The appeal of exploring such scenarios is so enticing that even prominent historians love delving into the depths of what could have been. Andrew Roberts...

The 1924 Army Mutiny was one of the most serious internal crises faced by the Irish Free State, coming just after the Civil War. The state, formed in 1922 after the Anglo-Irish Treaty, was financially and emotionally devastated. With a Civil War army of 55,000 soldiers, the new government needed to downsize to around 17,000–18,000 to cut costs and meet treaty obligations. This demobilisation enrag...

How hungry have you ever been? Quick trip to the snack drawer? A cheeky Chinese takeaway on a Friday night? How about getting a large pizza instead of a medium one? Well have you ever been so hungry - so impressively famished - that you take a look at the family dog and think to yourself: "Yeah, that'll do the trick." For this week's episode, that's not the weirdest thing to...

Across June 12th and 13th, the Israeli Air Force began the first phase of Operation Rising Lion - striking various targets inside Iran including, most prominently, three of its nuclear facilities at Fordo, Isfahan, and Natanz. The strikes were targeted to neutralise Iran's growing uranium enrichment project, with the International Atomic Energy Agency declaring the state was in breach of the I...

Napoleon, the Hero of Italy, has returned from his failed campaign in Egypt and Syria, and instead of being berated as a coward who abandoned his army to the harsh Middle Eastern climate - he was instead welcomed as the Hero of Egypt. His propaganda machine worked overtime, ensuring his return was met with outright praise. But fate, as we know it, comes knocking for Napoleon at every turn, and he...

History is so full of people and events that opinions regarding them are often varied, but in a lot of cases some figures or events are either blown way out of proportion or had the spotlight stripped from them almost entirely to the point that even their very existence isn't a known fact. This perpetrates throughout history so much that today it can often be controversial to question the perc...

In April 1876, the Western Australian coast contained many ships carrying out their normal business. It wasn't anything unusual of course, the coasts were busy and it wasn't at all uncommon for there to be commotion on the docks. But one ship in particular off the coast was here for a very different reason. Dropping anchor, it sent out a boat to the mainland and the crew jumped out and see...

Hayley is here to get jiggy with a bunch of 16th century villagers who started a flashmob and began dancing in the street when one local woman declared "Oh, I wanna dance with somebody!" and just could not shake it off until the footloose bug left their system... No I'm not at all embarrassed for all those song references. From the strange beginnings, to the weird ways they tried to...

What makes us proud to be Irish? Well in the long and varied history of the country, there are countless things that anyone can point to, but we've got our own reasons to look on our beloved Emerald Isle and smile. From the glowing smile of the Mr Tayto Man on a packet of cheese and onion crisps, to a succulent Irish meal in the local Supermac's after it won a landmark court case, to the h...

Napoleon, the Hero of Italy, has returned from his incredible triumph over the Austrians and finds himself without a command. But fate, as it always will with the young Corsican general, was about to come knocking. While war on the European mainland may have come to an end, France still had an enemy in Perfidious Albion whose island nation seemed impenetrable. Britain, likewise, was unable to land...

There have been a great number of prison escapes throughout history. Some are meticulously planned affairs that take months, or even years, to plan and ensure everything is in its proper place and ready for the big escape. Others seem to prop up at just the right opportunity, where a keen-eyed an intelligent prisoner is able to quickly assess an ever-changing situation and make their daring dash f...

Radium. That notoriously radioactive element that have been responsible for such devastating events in human history like the 1986 Chernobyl accident which saw a devastating nuclear reactor explosion from which the region has never truly recovered. But as is the case with all of our history, we did not simply spawn into this world with the knowledge that while radium certainly has some uses, you c...

On February 28th, 2025, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. president Donald Trump met in a televised bilateral meeting in the Oval Office. Most of the broadcast went well, but tensions would skyrocket in the last 10 minutes. What many referred to as an ambush broke out, leading to a shouting match between Zelensky, Trump, and U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance. No sooner were voices raise...

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few". Indeed, no truer words need be spoken to describe the heroics of those brave pilots who defended Britain's skies during the Battle of Britain - ensuring that Britain could live on to continue the struggle against Nazi Germany at the beginning of the Second World War. And the man of this episode, John Allman...