2004

## Events

### January

* January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 604 crashes into the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt, killing all 148 aboard making it one of the deadliest aviation accidents in Egyptian history at the time.
* January 8 – The RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest ocean liner ever built, is christened by its namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.

### February

* February 4 - Mark Zuckerberg creates the social networking site Facebook.
* February 26 – Macedonian president Boris Trajkovski is killed in a plane crash near Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
* February 29 – Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide is overthrown in a coup d'état.

### March

* March 2 – A series of bombings occur in Karbala, Iraq, killing over 140 Shia Muslims commemorating the Day of Ashura.
* March 11 – Coordinated bombings at a Cercanías train station in Madrid, Spain, kill at least 192 people.
* March 28 – Hurricane Catarina, the first ever recorded South Atlantic tropical cyclone, makes landfall in Santa Catarina, Brazil.
* March 29 – Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia are admitted to NATO, the largest expansion of the organization.

### April

* April 8 – The Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement is signed by the Sudanese government and two rebel groups, in order to put a pause on the War in Darfur.
* April 17 – Israeli helicopters fire missiles at a convoy of vehicles in the Gaza Strip, killing Hamas leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi.
* April 24 – Referendums on the Annan Plan for Cyprus, which proposes to reunite 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.

### May

* May 1 – The European Union expands by 10 member states: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Malta and Cyprus.

### June

* June 12 – July 4 – Portugal hosts the UEFA Euro 2004 football tournament, which is won by Greece.
* June 21 – In Mojave, California, SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight.
* June 28 – The U.S.-led coalition occupying Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), transfers sovereignty to the Iraqi Interim Government.
* June 30 – Preliminary hearings begin in Iraq in the trial of president Saddam Hussein, for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

### July

* July 1
	+ The unmanned *Cassini–Huygens* spacecraft arrives at Saturn.
	+ The Russian Federation stops recognizing Soviet Union passports as legal identification.

### August

* August 1 – A fire in the "Ycua Bolaños-Botánico" supermarket in Asunción, Paraguay kills around 400 peoples.
* August 3 – NASA's unmanned *MESSENGER* spacecraft is launched, with its primary mission being the study of Mercury.
* August 13–29 – The 2004 Summer Olympics are held in Athens, Greece.
* August 22 – Armed robbers steal Edvard Munch's *The Scream*, *Madonna*, and other paintings from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway.
* 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

* September 1 – Chechen rebels take 1,128 people hostage, mostly children, at a school in Beslan, Russia. The crisis ends when Russian security forces storm the building, resulting in more than 330 people being killed.

### 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.
* 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.
* 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).
* October 20 – Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is sworn in as the 6th President of Indonesia, becoming the first directly elected president in Indonesia.
* October 29 – European heads of state sign in Rome the Treaty and Final Act, establishing the first European Constitution.

### November

* November 2 – George W. Bush is reelected President of the United States
* November 13 – The European Space Agency unmanned probe SMART-1 arrives at the Moon, becoming the first European satellite to fly to the Moon and orbit it.
* November 16 – NASA's hypersonic *Scramjet* breaks a record by reaching a velocity of about 7,000 mph (Mach 9.6) in an unmanned experimental flight.
* November 22 – The Orange Revolution begins following a disputed presidential election in Ukraine where Viktor Yanukovych won against Viktor Yushchenko amid accusations of electoral fraud. A revote results in Yushchenko being declared the winner.

### December

* December 14 – The world's tallest bridge, the Millau Viaduct over the Tarn in the Massif Central mountains, France, is officially opened.
* December 21 – Iraqi insurgents attack a U.S. military base in the city of Mosul, killing 22 people.
* December 26 – The 9.1–9.3 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, the Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Indonesia, killing over 200,000 people.
* 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.
* December 30 – A fire in the República Cromañón nightclub in Buenos Aires, Argentina kills 194.
* 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.