2004

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.

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]

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 Rover 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 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.
Kalevi Sorsa
Ann Miller
José López Portillo
Juliana of the Netherlands
John Maynard Smith
Tony Randall
Ronald Reagan
Marlon Brando
Zenkō Suzuki
Czesław Miłosz
Brian Clough
Janet Leigh
Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan
Yasser Arafat
Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld