February 14, 2000. Wikipedia doesn’t exist. Neither does Facebook. The iPhone won’t launch for another six years. And tweeting is still a thing that birds do.

In an age when people read the newspaper over breakfast, founder Stephen Mayne published Crikey — solely, shock, online — for the first time. We’ve republished that first edition today: it features an insider’s account of litigation against NAB (shares plummeted), a Howard government insider dishing the dirt, a profile of Col Allen headlined “Pissing in the sink” and a journo’s personal account of being strangled by a politician.

Fifteen years and more than 40,000 articles later, Crikey is still proudly irritating the establishment.

In the last decade and a half, the world has witnessed an epic transformation of the media. To celebrate surviving and thriving among the upheaval, we’ll be bringing you a raft of special features throughout the year, including Stephen Mayne’s tour of one of the original Crikey bunkers, pollies and journos reading out some of the most colourful tip-offs from Crikey’s Tips and Rumours section, and an interactive timeline of 15 years of epic media transformation.

Later in the year we’ll be running an expose of how media and power works in Australia, launching a number of special investigations, featuring guest editorials from prominent Australians and more.

Crikey was built on a solid foundation of tip-offs, leaks, and the odd journalistic hand grenade. It’s a tradition that today’s team proudly upholds.

So here’s to the next 15! We’re not going anywhere.