It has taken almost 14 years but Newcastle have finally broken their transfer record with the signing of midfielder Miguel Almiron from MLS side Atlanta United.
The Paraguay international, 24, moves to St James' Park in a deal reported to be worth £20million, exceeding the £16million fee they paid Real Madrid for Michael Owen in August 2005.
Here, Press Association Sport takes a look at what the world was like when Newcastle last paid a club-record fee.
Football
A fresh-faced Jose Mourinho was at the height of his powers, having won the Premiership and League Cup with Chelsea in his first season in England – coming straight after his Champions League success with Porto.
Greece were European champions, Sven-Goran Eriksson was England manager, the new Wembley was still under construction, Zinedine Zidane (£45.6million) was the world's most expensive player and Harry Kane was 12 years old.
Politics
In 2005, we saw the re-election of Tony Blair's Labour government for a historic third term, while George W Bush was president of the United States.
Social Media
Wow, that's big. pic.twitter.com/j97g551KGg
— Twitter (@Twitter) November 29, 2018
Twitter was still being created and was not launched until March 2006. Myspace was the largest social networking site in the world at the time and Bebo (remember that?) had only just been launched. Facebook and YouTube were only 18 months old.
Music
"You're Beautiful" by James Blunt was number one in the singles chart when Owen signed for Newcastle, while Blunt also had the number one album with Back To Bedlam.
Technology
The iPhone had not been launched yet and the Nokia 1110 was the best-selling mobile phone at the time. Nintendo Wii (2006) and Kindle (2007) were also still just ideas.
In the news
The London terror attacks remained fresh in the mind in August 2005, while NASA launched the first Shuttle landing since the Columbia disaster of 2003.
