From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Calendar year
Clockwise from top-left:
Facebook , originally called TheFacebook , is launched by
Mark Zuckerberg ; the
2004 transit of Venus , the first such occurrence since
1882 ;
NASA lands the
Opportunity and
Spirit
rovers on
Mars ; the
2004 Summer Olympics are held in
Athens ;
Al-Qaeda
bombs multiple trains in
Madrid , killing 193 people; the
European Union
adds 10 new member-states; 333 people are killed in the
Beslan school siege , carried out by
Chechen terrorists; a massive 9.1-9.3
megathrust earthquake off the coast of
Sumatra and the resultant
tsunami kill over 227,000 people—one of the
worst natural disasters in recorded history.
Calendar year
2004 (
MMIV ) was a
leap year starting on Thursday of the
Gregorian calendar , the 2004th year of the
Common Era (CE) and
Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 4th year of the
3rd millennium and the
21st century , and the 5th year of the
2000s decade.
Calendar year
2004 was designated as an
International Year of Rice by the United Nations,
[1] and the
International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition (by
UNESCO ).
[2]
Culture
Media
2004 was a year marked by many popular and highly grossing film releases such as
Shrek 2 ,
Spider Man 2 ,
The Incredibles ,
The Passion of the Christ and
Howl's Moving Castle . 2004 was also the year where
Toho Studios would release
Godzilla's 50th anniversary movie,
Godzilla: Final Wars , the last Japanese Godzilla movie until
Shin Godzilla in
2016 .
The gaming industry would see the release of many
FPS and sequel games in 2004, with some of the most famous being
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
[3]
Halo 2 ,
[4]
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes ,
[5]
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door ,
[6] and
Half Life 2 .
[7] These titles are considered some of the greatest video games of all time.
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11] The
Nintendo DS also released this year, which grew to become the
best-selling handheld console of all time.
Events
January
February
March
March 2 –
A series of bombings occur in
Karbala ,
Iraq , killing over 140
Shia Muslims commemorating the
Day of Ashura .
[20]
March 7 – The
2004 Greek legislative election is held to elect all 300 members of the
Hellenic Parliament and the
New Democracy party, led by
Kostas Karamanlis , won 165 out of 300 seats, ending over 11 years of rule by the
PASOK party.
[21]
March 11 –
Al-Qaeda
bombings on
Cercanías trains in
Madrid ,
Spain , kill at least 192 people.
[22]
[23]
March 14 – The
PSOE wins the
election in Spain;
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is elected
Prime Minister of Spain , replacing
José María Aznar .
[24]
March 28 –
Hurricane Catarina , the first ever recorded South Atlantic hurricane, makes landfall in
Santa Catarina ,
Brazil .
[25]
March 29 –
Bulgaria ,
Estonia ,
Latvia ,
Lithuania ,
Romania ,
Slovakia and
Slovenia are admitted to
NATO , the largest expansion of the organization.
[26]
April
May
June
June 1 – A
United Nations peacekeeping mission in
Haiti begins, the
United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).
June 4 –
Marvin Heemeyer takes his modified and armoured
Komatsu D355A
bulldozer (
killdozer ) on a rampage through the town of
Granby, Colorado , causing approximately 7 million dollars worth of damage.
[32]
June 8 –
2004 transit of Venus .
[33]
June 12 –
July 4 –
Portugal hosts the
UEFA Euro 2004 football tournament, which is won by
Greece .
June 21 – In
Mojave, California , United States,
SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded
spaceplane to achieve
spaceflight .
[34]
June 28 – The U.S.-led coalition occupying Iraq, the
Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), transfers sovereignty to the
Iraqi Interim Government .
[35]
June 30 – Preliminary hearings begin in
Iraq in the trial of president
Saddam Hussein , for
war crimes and
crimes against humanity .
July
August
August 1 – A fire in the
"Ycua Bolaños-Botánico" supermarket in
Asunción , Paraguay kills around 400 people.
[38]
August 3 –
NASA 's unpiloted
MESSENGER spacecraft is launched, with its primary mission being the study of
Mercury .
[39]
August 12 –
Lee Hsien Loong is sworn in as the third
Prime Minister of Singapore .
[40]
August 13 –
29 – The
2004 Summer Olympics are held in
Athens , Greece.
[41]
August 22 – Armed robbers steal
Edvard Munch 's
The Scream ,
Madonna , and other paintings from the
Munch Museum in
Oslo , Norway.
[42]
August 24 – After departing
Domodedovo International Airport in
Moscow ,
Volga-AviaExpress Flight 1303 , a
Tupolev Tu-134 , explodes over
Russia 's
Tula Oblast and crashes, killing all 43 people on board; minutes later,
Siberia Airlines Flight 1047 , a
Tupolev Tu-154 departing the same airport, explodes over
Rostov Oblast and crashes, killing all 46 on board. The
Government of Russia declares the explosions to have been caused by female
Chechen
suicide bombers .
September
October
October 8 – Suicide bombers
detonate two bombs at the
Red Sea resort of
Taba, Egypt , killing 34 people and injuring 171, mostly Israeli tourists.
[45]
October 9 –
2004 Australian federal election :
John Howard 's
Liberal /
National
Coalition
government is re-elected with an increased majority, defeating the
Labor Party led by
Mark Latham .
[46]
October 17 –
Parque Central Complex fire : A fire that lasted over 15 hours destroyed almost one third of the East Tower of the
Parque Central Urban Complex in
Caracas ,
Venezuela .
[47]
October 19 – A team of explorers reach the bottom of
Krubera Cave , the world's deepest cave, with a depth of 2,080 meters (6,824 feet).
[48]
October 20 –
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is sworn in as the 6th
President of Indonesia , becoming the first directly elected president in Indonesia.
[49]
October 27 – The
Boston Red Sox win the
World Series for the sixth time after completing a sweep of the
St. Louis Cardinals . It was their first championship since
1918 .
October 29 – European heads of state sign in Rome the Treaty and Final Act, establishing the first
European Constitution .
[50]
November
December
December 14 – The world's tallest bridge, the
Millau Viaduct over the
Tarn in the
Massif Central mountains, France, is officially opened.
[58]
December 21 – Iraqi insurgents
attack a U.S. military base in the city of
Mosul , killing 22 people.
[59]
December 23 – The
Second Battle of Fallujah ends.
December 26 – The 9.1–9.3 Mw
Indian Ocean earthquake shakes northern
Sumatra with a maximum
Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent ). One of the largest observed
tsunamis follows, affecting coastal areas of
Thailand ,
India ,
Sri Lanka ,
Somalia , the
Maldives ,
Malaysia ,
Myanmar ,
Bangladesh , and
Indonesia , killing 227,000 people.
[60]
December 27 – Astrophysicists from the
Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching near Munich measure the strongest burst from a
magnetar . At 21:30:26 UT Earth is hit by a huge wave front of gamma and X-rays. It is the strongest flux of high-energetic gamma radiation measured so far.
[61]
December 30 – A
fire in the República Cromañón nightclub in
Buenos Aires , Argentina kills 194.
[62]
December 31 –
Taipei 101 , at the time the
tallest
skyscraper in the world, standing at a height of 1,670 feet (510 m), officially opens.
[63]
Date unknown
Nobel Prizes
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