2004 (MMIV ) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar , the 2004th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini 3rd millennium and the 21st century , and the 5th year of the 2000s decade.
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 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.
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2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations,[1] International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition (by UNESCO ).[2]
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 Howl's Moving Castle Toho Studios would release Godzilla's 50th anniversary movie, Godzilla: Final Wars ,Legendary Entertainment's Godzilla in 2014 , and the last Japanese Godzilla movie until Shin Godzilla 2016 .
Many shows would debut and end in 2004, with Friends airing it's final episode on May 6th 2004 after nearly a decade on air, and Lost airing it's first episode on September 22nd of the same year. Tsuburaya Productions would air the highly controversial Ultraman Nexus , the 17th entry of the Ultra Series on October 2nd 2004. Though the series was poorly received when it first began its broadcast, it is now seen as one of the best entries of the Ultra Series.
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] Half Life 2 [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] Nintendo DS best-selling handheld console of all time.
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] 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 .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 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 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 .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] 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 M w 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]
ZoomNews (in spanish) . The 192nd victim died in 2014, after a decade in coma in a hospital of Madrid. She was the last hospitalized injured person.Gibbs, Yvonne (May 10, 2017). "X-43A Hyper-X" . NASA . Archived from the original on May 20, 2022. Retrieved July 28, 2022 . 
