2004
2004 (MMIV) was a leap year that started on a Thursday. In the Gregorian calendar, the year 2004 was the 2004th year in the Anno Domini or Common Era, the 4th year in the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century, and the 5th in the 2000s decade.
The year 2004 was designated the:
Events
January
February
- February 1
- February 2 – An 11-story apartment building collapses in Konya, Turkey, killing more than 90 residents.
- February 3
- February 6 – A suicide bomber kills 41 people on a metro car in Moscow.
- February 7 – Several leaders of Abnaa el-Balad are arrested in Israel.
- February 10
- February 12 – San Francisco, California begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in an act of civil disobedience.
- February 13
- February 14
- February 17–February 20 – A nor'easter blizzard devastates Atlantic Canada, dumping more than 37.4 in. (95 cm.) on some areas.
- February 18 – A train carrying a convoy of petrol, fertiliser, and sulphur derails and explodes in Iran, killing 320 people.
- February 20 – Conservatives win a majority in the Iranian parliament election.
- February 24 – A 6.5 Richter scale earthquake in Northern Morocco hits in the Rif mountains near the city of Al Hoceima, killing 400. Ait Kamara is destroyed; 517 are killed.
- February 26
- February 27 – 2004 SuperFerry 14 bombing: The Abu Sayyaf guerrilla group is blamed for the deadliest terrorist attack at sea in world history, which kills 116 in the Philippines.
- February 28 – Over 1 million Taiwanese participating in the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally form a 500-kilometre (310 mi) long human chain to commemorate the 228 Incident in 1947.
- February 29 – 2004 Haiti rebellion: Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigns as president of Haiti. The chief justice of the Haitian Supreme Court, Boniface Alexandre, is sworn in as interim president.
March
- March 2 – NASA announces that the Mars rover MER-B (Opportunity) has confirmed that its landing area was once drenched in water.
- March 10 – Five British men are released from detention at Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay. After they land at RAF Brize Norton, 4 of them are immediately arrested for questioning.
- March 11 – Terrorists execute simultaneous attacks, with bombs in 4 rush-hour trains in Madrid, killing 191 people.
- March 12 – Following the terrorist attacks in Madrid the previous day, millions of protesters against terrorism take to the streets of Spanish cities.
- March 14
- March 15 – The new Spanish Government announces that it will withdraw Spain's 1,300 troops in Iraq.
- March 17 – A pogrom-like organized violence breaks out over 2 days in Kosovo; 19 people are killed, 8000 Serbian homes burned, schools and businesses vandalized, and over 300 Orthodox monasteries and churches burned and destroyed.
- March 19 – The United Nations launches a political corruption investigation due to the scandal over its Iraqi Oil for Food program.
- March 20 – President Chen Shui-bian wins the Taiwanese presidential election by 0.2% of the vote. The day before, he and Vice President Annette Lu were shot. Lien Chan refuses to concede and demands a recount. A controversial peace referendum opposed by the People's Republic of China is invalidated.
- March 21 – Salvadoran presidential election, 2004: Antonio Saca is elected President of El Salvador.
- March 22 – Palestinians protest in the streets after an Israeli helicopter gunship fires a missile at the entourage of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in Gaza City, killing him and 7 others.
- March 25 – British prime minister Tony Blair visits Libyan leader Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi, in return for the dismantling of Libya's Weapons of mass destruction programme in December 2003 (the first time a major western leader had visited the nation in several decades).
- March 28
- March 29
- March 31 – Four American private military contractors working for Blackwater USA are killed, and their bodies mutilated, after being ambushed in Fallujah, Iraq.
April
- April 5 – Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom begins a state visit to France to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale.
- April 8 – Darfur conflict: The Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement is signed by the Sudanese government and 2 rebel groups.
- April 17 – Israeli helicopters fire missiles at a convoy of vehicles in the Gaza Strip, killing the Gaza leader of Hamas, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi.
- April 20 – In Iraq, 12 mortars are fired on Abu Ghraib Prison by insurgents; 22 detainees are killed and 92 wounded. [1]
- April 21 – Mordechai Vanunu, who revealed an Israeli nuclear weapons program in the 1980s, is released from prison in Israel after serving 18 years for treason.
- April 22
- Ryongchon disaster: Two trains carrying explosives and fuel collide in Ryongchon, North Korea, killing 161 people, injuring 1,300 and destroying thousands of homes.
- The last coal mine in France closes, ending nearly 300 years of coal mining.
- April 24 – Referendums on the Annan Plan for Cyprus, which proposes to re-unite the island, take place in both the Greek-controlled and the Turkish-controlled parts. Although the Turkish Cypriots vote in favour, the Greek Cypriots reject the proposal.
- April 28 – Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse in Iraq is revealed on the television show 60 Minutes II.
- April 29 – The last Oldsmobile rolls off of the assembly line.
May
- May 1 – The largest expansion to date of the European Union takes place, extending the Union by 10 member-states: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Malta and Cyprus.
- May 4 – the Toronto Maple Leafs played their last NHL playoff game.
- May 6 – The series finale of Friends airs on NBC.
- May 8 – Would-be "Saudi Princess" "Antoinette Millard" surfaces in New York City, claiming that muggers had stolen jewels worth of $262,000 from her (she later proves to be an impostor).
- May 9 – Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov is killed by a landmine placed under a VIP stage during a World War II memorial parade in Grozny.
- May 10 – Philippine general election, 2004: Incumbent president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is elected for a 6-year term.
- May 12 – An American civilian contractor in Iraq, Nick Berg, is shown being decapitated by a group allegedly linked to al-Qaida on a web-distributed video.
- May 14 – Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark, marries Australian Mary Donaldson in Copenhagen.
- May 15 – South Africa is awarded the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
- May 16 – A coup d'état in Chad against President Idriss Déby fails.
- May 17
- May 19 – Jeremy Sivits pleads guilty in a court-martial in connection with alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.
- May 22 – Dr. Manmohan Singh assumes office as the 17th and first Sikh Prime Minister of the Republic Of India.
- May 23
- May 24 – North Korea bans mobile phones (see Communications in North Korea).
- May 26
- May 29 – The National World War II Memorial is dedicated in Washington, DC.
- May 30 – Thousands of people in Hong Kong take to the streets to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
June
July
August
- August 13 – Hurricane Charley kills 27 people in Florida, after killing 4 in Cuba and 1 in Jamaica. Charley makes landfall near Cayo Costa, FL as a Category 4 hurricane. Charley is the most intense hurricane to strike the United States since Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
- August 16 – Severe flooding occurs in the village of Boscastle in Cornwall.
- August 18 – In Dublin, Ireland, the Dublin Port Tunnel excavation works are completed and the final tunnel boring machine breakthrough ceremony takes place.
- August 20 – Elbegdorj Tsakhia, the peaceful democratic revolutionary leader of Mongolia, becomes Prime Minister of Mongolia for the second time.
- August 21 – A series of blasts rocks an opposition party rally in Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing at least 13 people.
- August 22 – Armed robbers steal Edvard Munch's The Scream, Madonna, and other paintings from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway.
- August 24 – Two airliners in Russia, carrying a total of 89 passengers, crash within minutes of each other after flying out of Domodedovo International Airport, leaving no survivors. Authorities suspect suicide attacks by rebels from Chechnya to be the cause of the crashes.
- August 29 – Around 200,000 protesters demonstrate in New York City against U.S. President George W. Bush and his government, ahead of the 2004 Republican National Convention.
- August 30–September 2 – U.S. President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are renominated at the Republican National Convention in New York City.
- August 31
- Two suicide attacks on buses in Beer Sheva, Israel, kill at least 16 people and injure at least 60. Hamas claims responsibility for the attacks.
- A woman commits a suicide attack near a subway station in northern Moscow, Russia, killing at least 10 people and injuring at least 50. Authorities hold Chechen rebels responsible.
September
- September – The Great Laxey Mine Railway of the Isle of Man is re-opened.
- September 1 – Chechen terrorists take between 1,000 and 1,500 people hostage, mostly children, in a school in the Beslan school hostage crisis. The hostage-takers demand the release of Chechen rebels imprisoned in neighbouring Ingushetia and the independence of Chechnya from Russia.
- September 2
- September 3
- September 7 – Hurricane Ivan passes directly over Grenada, killing 37 people. It passes over other Caribbean islands over the next 2 days, killing 5 people in Venezuela, 4 in the Dominican Republic, 1 in Tobago and 20 in Jamaica.
- September 8 – In the "Rathergate" affair, the first Internet posts appear, pointing out that documents claimed by CBS News to be typewritten memos from the early 1970s appear instead to have been produced using modern word processing systems.
- September 9
- September 13 – The U.S. Assault Weapons Ban expires.
- September 15
- September 16 – Hurricane Ivan strikes Gulf Shores, Alabama, as a Category 3 storm, killing 25 in Alabama and Florida, becoming the 3rd costliest hurricane in American history (currently the 4th following the destruction of 2005's Hurricane Katrina).
- September 17
- September 21 – Construction of the Burj Khalifa begins.
- September 22 – The TV series Lost airs its pilot.
- September 23
- September 24 – Major League Baseball announces that the Montreal Expos will move to Washington D.C. in 2005.
- September 25
- September 29 – In Mojave, California, the first Ansari X-Prize flight takes place of SpaceShipOne, which is competing with a number of spacecraft (including Canada's Da Vinci Project, claimed to be its closest rival) and goes on to win the prize on October 4.
October
November
- November 2
- November 6
- November 7 – U.S. forces launch a major assault on the Iraqi town of Fallujah, in an effort to rid the area of insurgents before the Iraqi elections in January.
- November 8 – The Irish High Court rules that Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan can sue the Revenue Commissioner to have their Vancouver, British Columbia Same-sex marriage recognized for tax purposes.
- November 13 – After six days of intense battles, the Iraqi town of Fallujah is fully occupied by U.S. forces.
- November 14 – United States Secretary of State Colin Powell submits his resignation. He is replaced by Condoleezza Rice after her confirmation by the United States Congress.
- November 16
- November 17–November 21 – The APEC Summit is held in Santiago, Chile.
- November 19 – The NBA's Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons engage in a brawl that involves fans and players. The incident gets (then) Pacer Ron Artest suspended for the remainder of the season.
- November 21 – Ukrainian presidential election, 2004: Viktor Yanukovych is declared the winner in the final round. International election observers express severe criticism, and large crowds gather in a protest rally in Kiev; 12 days later, the Supreme Court annuls the result, and a new poll is scheduled.
- November 25 – The Indian political party Congress Jananayaka Peravai merges into the Indian National Congress.
- November 26 – A group of Iraqi political leaders, primarily from Sunni and Kurdish parties, advocate a 6-month delay in popular elections scheduled for January 2005.
- November 28
- An coal mine explosion in China kills over 150.
- Ricardo Lagos, President of Chile, promises economic compensation to 28,000 torture victims of Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship.
- A male Po'o-uli dies of avian malaria at the Maui Bird Conservation Center in Olinda before it can breed, making the species in all probability extinct.
December
- December 3 – The Colombian government extradites Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, one of the most powerful drug dealers in the world, arrested in 1995 and 2003, to the United States.
- December 6 – Terrorists attack the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing several people.
- December 8 – The biggest Chinese PC producer Lenovo announces its plan to purchase IBM's global PC business, making it the third largest world PC maker after Dell and Hewlett-Packard.
- December 10 – New Zealand bans smoking in all public places, including bars.
- December 11 – Tests show that Ukrainian opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned with a large dose of dioxin.
- December 13 – Software giants Oracle Corporation and PeopleSoft agree to merge in a $10.3 billion deal, creating the second largest maker of business applications software.
- December 14 – The world's tallest bridge, the Millau bridge over the River Tarn in the Massif Central mountains, France, is opened by President Jacques Chirac.
- December 15 – Albanian terrorists take a bus and its passengers hostage in Athens, Greece and demand 1 million euros in ransom money.
- December 16
- December 21 – Iraqi insurgents attack a U.S. military base in the city of Mosul, killing 22 people.
- December 22 – Armed robbers in Northern Ireland steal over £22 million from the headquarters of the Northern Bank. Unionist politicians and the Police Service of Northern Ireland blame the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and stall the peace process.
- December 26
- One of the worst natural disasters in recorded history hits Southeast Asia, when the strongest earthquake in 40 years hits the entire Indian Ocean region. The massive 9.3 magnitude earthquake, epicentered just off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, generates enormous tsunami waves that crash into the coastal areas of a number of nations including Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. The official death toll in the affected countries stands at 186,983 while more than 40,000 people are still missing.
- The re-run of the second round of the Ukrainian presidential election takes place. Opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko is declared the winner.
- 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 the 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.
- December 28 – The Ukrainian transport minister, Heorhiy Kirpa, is found shot dead, in a suspected suicide.
- December 30 – A fire in a Buenos Aires night club (República Cromagnon) kills 194 people during a rock concert.
- December 31
Births
Deaths
Main article:
Deaths in 2004
January
February
March
April
May
June
- June 2 – Loyd Sigmon, American amateur ("ham") radio broadcastor (b. 1909)
- June 5
- June 7 – Quorthon, Swedish musician (b. 1966)
- June 10 – Ray Charles, American singer and musician (b. 1930)
- June 11
- June 13 – Dick Durrance, American skier (b. 1914)
- June 16 – Thanom Kittikachorn, Thai military dictator, 10th Prime Minister of Thailand (b. 1912)
- June 20 – Jim Bacon, Australian politician, 41st Premier of Tasmania (b. 1950)
- June 21 – Ron Ashman, former footballer and football manager (b. 1926)
- June 26 – Naomi Shemer, Israeli songwriter (b. 1931)
- June 27 – George Patton IV, American general (b. 1923)
- June 30 – Jamal Abro, Sindhi writer (b. 1924)
July
- July 1
- July 2 – John Cullen Murphy, American comic strip artist (b. 1919)
- July 3 – Percy Wickman, Canadian politician (b. 1941)
- July 4 – Jean-Marie Auberson, Swiss conductor (b. 1920)
- July 5
- July 6
- July 9 – Isabel Sanford, American actress (b. 1917)
- July 12 – Betty Oliphant, co-founder of National Ballet of Canada (b. 1918)
- July 13 – Carlos Kleiber, Austrian conductor (b. 1930)
- July 16 – Pat Roach, British wrestler and actor (b. 1937)
- July 19 – Zenko Suzuki, Japanese politician, 70th Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1911)
- July 21
- July 22 – Sacha Distel, French singer (b. 1933)
- July 28
August
- August 1 – Philip Abelson, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1913)
- August 3 – Henri Cartier-Bresson, French photographer (b. 1908)
- August 6 – Rick James, American musician (b. 1948)
- August 8 – Fay Wray, Canadian actress (b. 1907)
- August 12 – Godfrey Hounsfield, English electrical engineer and inventor, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1919)
- August 13 – Julia Child, American chef (b. 1912)
- August 14 – Czesław Miłosz, Polish-born writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1911)
- August 15 – Sune Bergström, Swedish biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1916)
- August 17
- August 18 – Elmer Bernstein, American composer (b. 1922)
- August 24 – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Swiss-born psychiatrist (b. 1926)
- August 26 – Laura Branigan, American singer (b. 1957)
- August 30 – Fred Lawrence Whipple, American astronomer (b. 1906)
September
- September 1 – Ahmed Kuftaro, Grand Mufti of Syria (b. 1915)
- September 8 – Frank Thomas, American animator (b. 1912)
- September 10 – Brock Adams, American politician (b. 1927)
- September 11 – Patriarch Peter VII of Alexandria (b. 1949)
- September 13 – Luis E. Miramontes, Mexican chemist (b. 1925)
- September 14 – Ove Sprogøe, Danish actor (b. 1919)
- September 15 – Johnny Ramone, American guitarist (The Ramones) (b. 1948)
- September 18
- September 19 – Árpád Bogsch, Hungarian-born civil servant (b. 1919)
- September 20 – Brian Clough, British football manager of Nottingham Forest and Derby County (b. 1935)
- September 22 – Ray Traylor, American professional wrestler (b. 1962)
- September 24 – Françoise Sagan, French writer (b. 1935)
October
November
- November 1 – Mac Dre, American rapper (b. 1970)
- November 2
- November 3 – Sergei Zholtok, Latvian hockey player (b. 1972)
- November 7
- November 9 – Emlyn Hughes, English footballer (b. 1947)
- November 10 – Katy de la Cruz, Filipino singer (b. 1907)
- November 11 – Yasser Arafat, Palestinian leader, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1929)
- November 13 – Ol' Dirty Bastard, American rapper (b. 1968)
- November 14 – Margaret Hassan, Irish-born aid worker (b. 1945)
- November 15 – John Morgan, British-born comedian (b. 1930)
- November 19 – John Robert Vane, British pharmacologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1927)
- November 23 – Rafael Eitan, Israeli politician (b. 1929)
- November 29
December
- December 1 – Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, German born Prince Consort of the Netherlands (b. 1911)
- December 2
- December 5 – Seymour Ginsburg, American computer scientist (b. 1928)
- December 7 – Frederick Fennell, American conductor (b. 1914)
- December 8 – Dimebag Darrell, American guitarist (b. 1966)
- December 12 – Kathryn Eames, American actress (b. 1908)
- December 14 – Fernando Poe, Jr., Filipino actor and 2004 presidential candidate (b. 1935)
- December 15 – Vassal Gadoengin, Nauruan politician (b. 1943)
- December 18 – Anthony Sampson, British journalist and biographer (b. 1926)
- December 19
- December 23 – P. V. Narasimha Rao, Indian politician, 10th Prime Minister of India (b. 1921)
- December 24 – Johnny Oates, American baseball player and manager (b. 1926)
- December 26 – Reggie White, American football player (b. 1961)
- December 27 – Hank Garland, American guitarist (b. 1930)
- December 28
- December 30 – Artie Shaw, American musician (b. 1910)
- December 31 – Gérard Debreu, French-born economist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1921)
Nobel Prizes
References