Peter Murray

Over the past year, I've been quietly building something...and it's ready enough to share. 🧵

It's called https://ThisWas.News — every day, it shows you the lead headlines from one week, two weeks, one month, three months, six months, and one year ago today — with a short summary of what was actually happening.

Remember what the headlines used to be

This Was News is a daily time capsule of top news stories. Pick any date to see the lead headline and other major stories from that day, curated from major fact-focused news outlets so you can remember what the world thought was important.

This Was News
Apr 4 at 3:44pmWeb
Show threadPeter Murray1d ago

The idea came from noticing how often a story dominates the news cycle and then just... disappears. Not because it resolved. Just because something else came along.

I'm finding that "one year ago today" next to a headline I half-remembered is a surprisingly useful feeling. It tells me something about how much has changed — and how much hasn't.

Show threadPeter Murray1d ago
If that sounds useful to you, you can follow on Bluesky or Mastodon (@thiswasnews), subscribe to RSS feeds, or get a daily email. https://thiswas.news/reminders — I'd genuinely love to know what you think.
Get Reminded

Follow This Was News on Bluesky or Mastodon, subscribe to RSS feeds, or sign up for a daily email to get reminders about what was leading the news one week, one month, and one year ago.

This Was News
Show threadMike Taylor 🦕1d ago
@dltj @thiswasnews … and here is a different take, which I think you might find interesting. https://www.experimental-history.com/p/reading-the-news-is-the-new-smoking
Reading the news is the new smoking

I quit. I feel great. You can too.

Experimental History
Show threadPeter Murray1d ago
@mike I wonder what it would be like to read the news on a delay…like get the headlines a few days after it happened. Less to get angry about, I suppose, because it is already somewhat in the past.
Show threadMike Taylor 🦕1d ago
@dltj Interesting idea.
Show threadVM (Vicky) Brasseur1d ago

@dltj An RSS feed!

Peter, you're good people.

Show threadgittaca1d ago
@vmbrasseur @dltj Doing the lord's work *bow* Subscribed! I've been looking forward to someone building this for long time :-)
Show threadPeter Murray1d ago
@gittaca @vmbrasseur This has been on my mind since the airliner-helicopter disaster in Washington. I thought for sure I was going to forget about that within days. A week later I had the first news website homepage scrapers written.
Show threadPeter Murray1d ago
@vmbrasseur Of course! I added RSS before the email newsletter!
Show threadPerrin421d ago

@dltj

Neat concept.