50 Fun Facts About 2004

Which social network did Mark Zuckerberg launch for fellow Harvard students in February 2004?

Facebook began as TheFacebook, open only to Harvard students before it spread to Stanford, Columbia and Yale a month later. It opened to anyone aged 13 or over in 2006.

Which singer's costume was torn open by Justin Timberlake during the Super Bowl halftime show in February 2004?

Janet Jackson became the most searched term in internet history, and YouTube's founders said the hunt for a clip of the moment helped inspire their site.

Which NBC sitcom about six New Yorkers ended in May 2004 with a finale watched by 52.5 million Americans?

Friends signed off with the most-watched episode of any American series in the 2000s. Only the Super Bowl drew a bigger television audience in 2004.

Which baseball team swept the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2004 World Series to win a first title since 1918?

The Boston Red Sox had trailed the New York Yankees three games to none in the previous round before winning four straight. The title ended the so-called Curse of the Bambino.

Which software engineer from Utah won 74 consecutive games of the quiz show Jeopardy! during 2004?

Ken Jennings took home $2,522,700 from the run, which ended in his 75th game on a final clue whose answer was the tax firm H&R Block. The company then offered him free tax advice for life.

Which talk show host opened her 2004 season by giving every audience member a new Pontiac G6?

Oprah Winfrey did not pay for the cars herself: General Motors donated them, at a total value of about $8 million.

Which country in March 2004 became the first to ban smoking in workplaces nationwide, including bars and restaurants?

Ireland's ban began on 29 March 2004 and covered pubs as well as offices, with fines of up to €3,000. Norway and New Zealand brought in national bans of their own later that year.

Which country, rated as long as 150–1 beforehand, beat hosts Portugal in the final of football's Euro 2004?

Greece beat the hosts twice, in the tournament's opening match and again in the final, where Angelos Charisteas scored the only goal.

Which British preschool cartoon began its first series of five-minute episodes on Channel 5 in May 2004?

Peppa Pig was created by Neville Astley and Mark Baker and has been broadcast in over 180 countries. Hasbro paid $3.8 billion in 2019 for the company that owned it.

Which world-famous painting did masked gunmen steal from an Oslo museum in broad daylight in August 2004?

The Scream was taken along with Edvard Munch's Madonna, and police recovered both two years later. Another version had been stolen from Oslo's National Gallery in 1994.

Which city hosted the 2004 Summer Olympics, having staged the first modern Games back in 1896?

Athens staged the shot put in the ancient stadium at Olympia, and both marathons finished in the marble Panathenaic Stadium used for the 1896 Games.

Which teenage American swimmer won six gold medals and two bronze at the 2004 Summer Olympics?

Michael Phelps tied the record of eight medals at one Games, and had earned a medley relay final place that he handed to teammate Ian Crocker.

Which Democratic presidential nominee did George W. Bush defeat in November 2004 to win a second term?

John Kerry conceded the day after the election, once the crucial swing state of Ohio had reported about 135,000 provisional ballots still to count.

Which former US president died in June 2004 at age 93, a decade after revealing an Alzheimer's diagnosis?

Ronald Reagan was the longest-lived US president up to that point. More than 100,000 people queued for up to seven hours to file past his casket in the Capitol Rotunda.

Across which ocean did a tsunami spread on 26 December 2004, killing about 228,000 people in 14 countries?

The Indian Ocean had no tsunami warning system in 2004, so coastal communities had no alert before the waves arrived. It is the deadliest tsunami in history.

Which planet did NASA's twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity land on in January 2004 for a planned 90-day mission?

Mars kept both rovers working far beyond the plan: Spirit was active until 2010 and Opportunity until 2018, more than 14 years after landing.

Which email service launched on 1 April 2004 with a gigabyte of storage, an offer some took for an April Fools' joke?

Gmail's one gigabyte was far more than rival services offered, and once people realised it was real, invitations to join were in high demand.

Which animated sequel beat Spider-Man 2 to finish as the highest-grossing film of 2004 worldwide?

Shrek 2 also became the highest-grossing animated film of all time worldwide, a record it held until Toy Story 3 passed it in 2010.

Which 2004 animated film features Edna Mode, a fashion designer who refuses to add capes to her costumes?

The Incredibles gave Edna Mode the voice of its own writer-director, Brad Bird, who took the part after several attempts to cast an actress failed.

Which R&B singer topped the US Hot 100 for twelve straight weeks in 2004 with a hit featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris?

Usher had the longest-running number one of 2004, and the single finished top of the year-end Hot 100. Its parent album, Confessions, sold 1.1 million copies in its first week.

Which fantasy film won all eleven Oscars it was nominated for at the Academy Awards held in February 2004?

The Return of the King tied Ben-Hur and Titanic for the most Oscar wins by one film, and it was the first fantasy film to take Best Picture.

Which ABC drama premiered in September 2004 with a plane crash stranding survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 on an island?

Lost was filmed mainly on Oahu, Hawaii, and its two-part pilot was the most expensive in ABC's history, reportedly costing between $10 million and $14 million.

Which Major League Baseball team played its last season in 2004 before moving to Washington, D.C.?

The Montreal Expos became the Washington Nationals. Their last game was against the New York Mets, the same club they had faced in their very first game in 1969.

Which British actor began playing the American doctor Gregory House when the Fox drama launched in November 2004?

Hugh Laurie recorded his audition in Namibia, where he was shooting a film, and producer Bryan Singer, set on hiring an American, took him for one.

Which actor directed The Passion of the Christ, the 2004 film with dialogue entirely in Aramaic, Hebrew and Latin?

Mel Gibson saw the film take $370.8 million in the United States, a record for an R-rated release that stood for 20 years.

Which Saturday Night Live writer turned a self-help book about teenage cliques into the 2004 comedy Mean Girls?

Tina Fey read Rosalind Wiseman's Queen Bees and Wannabes and called producer Lorne Michaels to suggest it as a film. She also plays the math teacher Ms. Norbury.

Which fast-food chain's meals did Morgan Spurlock eat for 30 days straight in the 2004 documentary Super Size Me?

McDonald's dropped its Super Size option six weeks after the film premiered. Spurlock had gained 24.5 pounds by the end of his month on the menu.

Which actor won an Oscar for playing the blind soul pianist Ray Charles in the 2004 biopic Ray?

Jamie Foxx needed no piano double, having gone to college on a classical piano scholarship. Ray Charles died in June 2004, months before the film opened.

Which pop star's Las Vegas wedding in January 2004 was annulled just 55 hours after the ceremony?

Britney Spears married Jason Alexander, whom she had known since childhood, at A Little White Wedding Chapel. The court petition said she had not understood what she was doing.

Which American band released American Idiot in September 2004, an album its members called a punk rock opera?

Green Day won the Grammy for Best Rock Album with the record, and its story of a suburban anti-hero later became a Broadway musical.

Which Roc-A-Fella in-house producer released his debut album as a rapper, The College Dropout, in February 2004?

Kanye West recorded one of the album's singles with his jaw wired shut, two weeks after a near-fatal car crash caused when he fell asleep at the wheel.

Which online role-playing game set on the planet Azeroth did Blizzard release in November 2004?

World of Warcraft arrived for the tenth anniversary of the Warcraft series and grew to a peak of 12 million subscribers in 2010.

What color were the Livestrong wristbands that Lance Armstrong's cancer foundation launched in May 2004?

Yellow was chosen to match the Tour de France leader's jersey. Sales reached 80 million by 2013, the year Nike cut ties with the foundation after Armstrong admitted doping.

Which Illinois state senator delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004?

Barack Obama was still only a candidate for the US Senate when he gave the speech, titled The Audacity of Hope, a name he reused for his second book in 2006.

Which English club completed an entire Premier League season without defeat in May 2004, earning a gold trophy?

Arsenal won 26 games and drew 12, the first unbeaten top-flight season since Preston North End in 1888–89. The run stretched to 49 league games before it ended.

Which 17-year-old Russian upset defending champion Serena Williams to win the Wimbledon women's title in 2004?

Maria Sharapova became the third-youngest woman to win Wimbledon, behind only Lottie Dod and Martina Hingis. It was her first Grand Slam singles title.

Which US state became the first to marry same-sex couples in May 2004, after a ruling by its Supreme Judicial Court?

Massachusetts acted on its court's Goodridge ruling, which had been put on hold for 180 days to give state lawmakers time to respond.

Which planet did the Cassini spacecraft begin orbiting in July 2004 after a journey of almost seven years?

Saturn had been visited by three earlier probes, but Cassini was the first to orbit it and stayed until 2017. Its Huygens lander touched down on the moon Titan in 2005.

Which Ferrari driver won 13 of the 18 Grands Prix in 2004 on the way to a seventh Formula One world title?

Michael Schumacher clinched the title at the Belgian Grand Prix, his fifth in a row with Ferrari and the last championship of his career.

Which host returned to ABC in February 2004 with a Millionaire quiz show spin-off offering a $10 million top prize?

Regis Philbin hosted 12 episodes of the spin-off, Who Wants to Be a Super Millionaire, where contestant Robert Essig left with $1 million of the possible $10 million.

Which privately built rocket plane won the $10 million Ansari X Prize in October 2004 after two flights above 100 km?

SpaceShipOne was built without government funding by a venture between Paul Allen and Burt Rutan's company. It was retired after the win and sent to the Smithsonian.

Which skyscraper, the first to top half a kilometer, opened on 31 December 2004 as the world's tallest building?

Taipei 101 is steadied against strong winds by a 660-metric-ton steel pendulum that serves as a tuned mass damper. It kept the height record until the Burj Khalifa passed it.

In which country did the Orange Revolution protests of late 2004 force a rerun of a disputed presidential runoff?

Ukraine's Supreme Court annulled the runoff and ordered a re-vote, which was won by Viktor Yushchenko, who had suffered dioxin poisoning that September.

Which underdog team beat Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal's Lakers in five games in the 2004 NBA Finals?

The Detroit Pistons smothered the heavily favored Lakers with an imposing defense, and point guard Chauncey Billups was named Finals MVP.

Which manager won the Champions League with Porto in May 2004 and joined Chelsea a week later?

José Mourinho watched Porto beat Monaco 3–0 in the final, then arrived in London as the first Portuguese manager in the Premier League.

Which internet term did Merriam-Webster name its Word of the Year for 2004 after a surge in online look-ups?

Blog is a shortening of weblog, credited to Peter Merholz, who jokingly split the word into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his own site.

Which Kenyan tree-planting campaigner became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004?

Wangari Maathai led a movement that combined planting trees with campaigning for women's rights, and its work was opposed by Kenya's government of the day.

Which material did two University of Manchester physicists first isolate in 2004 using ordinary adhesive tape?

Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms, peeled from a piece of graphite with the tape. Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for the work.

Which Trinidadian batsman reclaimed the Test record score by making 400 not out against England in 2004?

Brian Lara had seen his old mark of 375 beaten by Matthew Hayden's 380 in 2003, and he is the only man to have reclaimed the Test record score.

Which Seattle Mariners outfielder broke an 84-year-old baseball record in 2004 with 262 hits in one season?

Ichiro Suzuki passed the 257 hits George Sisler had collected in 1920, having gone into the final three-game series of the season still one short.