2004 Annual History Facts

2004 Annual History Facts

  • The Disaster: The Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster affected over a dozen countries and resulted in over 300,00 people dead on December 26.
  • The Top Song was Yeah! by Usher with Lil Jon & Ludacris
  • The Big Movies included Shrek 2, Spider-Man 2, and The Passion of the Christ.
  • Price of Whirlpool clothes washer in 2004: $279.00
    10.75 oz Campbell’s Tomato Soup: 79 cents
  • The World Population was ~ 6,404,000,000
  • Jim Benton’s sarcastic “It’s Happy Bunny” came into the scene.
  • Canadian golfer Robb James played 47 rounds of golf on a single June day.
  • The silicone wristband became popular in 2004 with the Livestrong yellow band set up by American cyclist Lance Armstrong.
  • 2004 Olympics: #MichaelPhelps
  • And… “Flash Mob” was added to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, where it noted it as an “unusual and pointless act.”

World Series Champions

Boston Red Sox

Superbowl XXXVIII Champions

New England Patriots

National Basketball Association Champions

Detroit Pistons

NHL Stanley Cup Champions

Tampa Bay Lightning

US Open Golf

Retief Goosen

US Open Tennis (Men Ladies)

Roger Federer/Svetlana Kuznetsova

Wimbledon (Men/Women)

Roger Federer/Maria Sharapova

NCAA Football Champions

Southern California

NCAA Basketball Champions

Connecticut

Bowl Games

Orange Bowl: January 1, 2004 – Miami (Florida) over Florida State
Rose Bowl: January 1, 2004 – USC over Michigan
Sugar Bowl: January 4, 2004 – LSU over Oklahoma

Kentucky Derby

Smarty Jones

Westminster Kennel Best in Show Dog

Darbydale’s All-Rise Pouch Cove

Time Magazine’s Man of the Year

George W. Bush

Miss America

Ericka Dunlap (Orlando, FL)

Miss USA

Shandi Finnessey (Missouri)

Fashion Icons and Movie Stars

Christina Aguilera, Jessica Alba, Pamela Anderson, Jennifer Aniston, Ashanti, Mischa Barton, Victoria Beckham, Kate Beckinsale, Catherine Bell, Halle Berry, Beyonce, Jessica Biel, Cate Blanchette, Kate Bosworth, Gisele Bündchen, Brooke Burke, Kari Byron, Mariah Carey, Sheryl Crow, Elisha Cuthbert, Rosario Dawson, Zooey Deschanel, Cameron Diaz, Kirsten Dunst, Carmen Electra, Shannon Elizabeth, Eve, Fergie, Daisy Fuentes, Jennifer Garner, Gina Gershon, Eva Green, Teri Hatcher, Paris Hilton, Janet Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Milla Jovovich, Kelis, Alicia Keys, Nicole Kidman, Keira Knightley, Anna Kournikova, Eva Longoria, Lindsay Lohan, Jennifer Lopez, Vanessa Marcil, Maria Menounos, Sienna Miller, Kylie Minogue, Brottany Murphy, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson (turned 18 on June 13), Sarah Jessica Parker, Paulina Rubio, Rebecca Romijn, Portia de Rossi, Nicole Scherzinger, Amanda Seyfried, Shakira, Jessica Simpson, Kim Smith, Britney Spears, Gwen Stefani, Chalize Theron, Melania Trump, Shania Twain, Liv Tyler, Uma Thurman, Naomi Watts, Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones

Jude Law, George Clooney, Usher, Johnny Depp, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom, Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, David Beckham

“The Quotes”

“You’re Fired”
– Donald Trump

“That’s Hot”
– Paris Hilton

“Heeaauughh!
– Howard Dean

“I Am A Gay American”
– NJ ex-governor Jim McGreevey

2004 Pop Culture History

The ghost town of Albert, TX, with a population of 7, was purchased in 2004 for $216,000. Some renovations were done, like adding a tavern, and three years later, the town was auctioned off and sold on eBay with a $2,500,000 reserve price.

Samantha Mumba wore a Scott Henshall-designed dress (filled with diamonds) worth somewhere between 10 and 13 million dollars at the Spider-Man 2 premiere, probably the most expensive premiere dress ever.

Survivor: Vanuatu Winner: Chris Daugherty

www.Whitehouse.com was a porn website until 2004.

In June 2004, every subscriber of Reason Magazine received a personalized issue with their name and a satellite photo of their home or workplace on the cover.

Ashlee Simpson was caught lip-syncing on Saturday Night Live on October 24.

Ken Jennings won 74 games and 2.5 Million dollars on Jeopardy!

 

Comcast failed at a hostile takeover of the Walt Disney Company, with a bid of $ 54.1 billion.

A supercolony of ants measuring 62 miles wide was discovered in Melbourne, Australia.

Napoleon Dynamite had a budget of only $400,000, and Jon Heder was paid only $1,000 for his role as Napoleon.

White Chicks was nominated for five Razzies, including the Worst Picture, Worst Actress, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Screen Couple. Film critic Richard Roeper even put the film as the #1 worst film of 2004.

Tilly Smith, at age 10, helped save her family and hundreds of tourists in Thailand from the 2004 tsunami by recognizing warning signs of a tsunami that she had learned in her geography class two weeks earlier.

After sweeping the 2004 Oscars, Peter Jackson & Elijah Wood skipped all official celebrations to attend a LOTR fan party.

Parisian police found a secret room with a stocked bar and restaurant in an uncharted area of the Paris Catacombs. They returned to trace the installed power and phone lines to discover they had been cut, with a note left behind reading, “Do not try and find us.”

The 2004 Indian Earthquake may have shortened the length of a day by 2.68 microseconds.

After the airing of South Park’s “Trapped in the Closet,” Matt Stone and Trey Parker were followed and investigated by the Church of Scientology.

Morgan Spurlock gained 25 pounds in 30 days, eating only McDonald’s food. It took him 14 months to lose the weight.

Steven Stanzak, an NYU Student, spent eight months living in the college library due to being unable to afford tuition and room & board despite a $15000/yr scholarship and working 30 hours a week. Upon learning about this, the university gave him free accommodation throughout the summer.

Deadpool described himself as “Ryan Reynolds crossed with a shar-pei” in a 2004 comic book series, leading Reynolds to believe he was destined for the role.

A black bear was found passed out on the lawn at a resort in Baker Lake, Washington, after consuming 36 cans of Rainier Beer, sampling but not drinking any of the Busch. A Fish and Wildlife agent said, “it had a preference.”

Roger Ebert said the 2004 film National Treasure was “so silly that the Monty Python version could use the same screenplay, line for line.”

William Hung lost on American Idol but won America’s collective heart with his happy nature. He sang Ricky Martin’s She Bangs.

‘Curse of the Bambino’ – The Red Sox last won a World Series in 1918; their streak as a ‘quality team’ ended when they sold Babe Ruth’s contract to the New York Yankees.

Golden Palace won Virgin Mary on Toast for $5,999.00

Cost of a Superbowl ad in 2004: $2,300,000

American Kim Coberly Hula-Hooped for 72 hours in October 2004.

Jeanna Giese, a 15-year-old girl in Wisconsin, was bit by a bat she picked up. After showing signs of rabies a month later, doctors devised a last-ditch experimental treatment that cured her. She is the first known person to have survived after showing rabies symptoms.

By 2004, humanity produced more transistors than it did rice grains; by 2010, you could buy 125,000 transistors for the price of a grain of rice. A 16GB drive contains more transistors than the number of neurons in your brain.

Verizon received $2.1 billion in tax breaks in PA to wire every house with 45Mbps by 2015. Half of all households were to be wired by 2004. When deadlines weren’t met (as of 2013), Verizon kept the money.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy in 1877 became a best-seller thanks to Oprah’s Book Club in 2004.

December 26, 2004 Tsunami

A Tsunami killed nearly a quarter of a million people (some reports up to 300,000) in Indonesia and the entire South Asian area, including Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand. An underwater earthquake with a guesstimated Magnitude of 9.2 caused it. It lasted nearly 10 minutes, and some waves were 100 feet tall. During the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on December 26, 2004, fishermen said they saw with their own eyes “the reality of generations of legends . . . the remains of ancient temples and hundreds of refrigerator-sized blocks, all briefly exposed before the sea swallowed them up again.” The tsunami killed nearly 250,000 people.

RIP, Scandals, Sad and Odd News

The Beslan School Massacre occurred in Russia, where Muslim extremists took 1100 people hostage. The extremists had a standoff with Russia for three days. It ended with 333 casualties.

A storage unit was bought by Nabila Haniss from the show Storage Wars for $208. The unit was found to have been previously owned by Paris Hilton and had many nude images of the celeb. The socialite’s belongings were sold to an entrepreneur for $10 million, who created and resold her belongings on a website called “Paris Exposed.”

In 2004, 21 percent of people aged 18 to 29 cited “The Daily Show” as where they learned presidential campaign news, even though the show’s producers (including Jon Stewart) ridiculed the very idea of people looking to their program as a primary news source.

An elephant charged and killed Lokalo Ekitela and her son in northern Kenya then buried their bodies before leaving the scene.

The Matara Express was a train derailed and destroyed by the tsunami of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. It is considered the most significant single rail disaster in world history by death toll. More than 1,700 people died.

Barbie and Ken broke up in 2004. Barbie dated a guy named Blaine for a couple of years, then got back with Ken in 2006.

Colby Nolan, a cat, was granted an MBA from Trinity Southern University of Texas as part of an investigation to uncover the school as a diploma mill.

Cameron Todd Willingham was charged and executed in 2004 for allegedly setting his house on fire to murder his three children in 1991. All the evidence against him was debunked by experts in fire investigations five years later. The jailhouse snitch admitted he lied, and top scientists/investigators have not found any reason to think the house fire was anything other than a freak accident.

Jeremy Clarkson punched Piers Morgan at the British Press Awards, leaving a scar above his left eye.

Justin Timberlake exposed Janet Jackson’s right breast during 2004’s Super Bowl halftime show while they sang his “Rock Your Body.” Well, most of it was exposed. The New American phrase: “Wardrobe Malfunction.”

Between 1985 and 2004, the number of people saying there is no one with whom they discuss important matters nearly tripled.

“I am a gay American” – James McGreevey, Democrat Governor of New Jersey, revealed he was gay and admitted an extramarital affair with aide Golan Cipel. The arguably criminal aspect of hiring a non-qualified lover to be in charge of NJ’s homeland security was overshadowed by the sex scandal.

The audience at Oprah’s “You Get a Car” episode had to pay $7,000 in taxes or forfeit the gift.

During the 2004 US Presidential Campaign, CBS and Dan Rather used probably forged documents during a 60 Minutes Wednesday report on George W. Bush’s Vietnam-era service record. The report was written with a modern computer, not the IBM Selectric that would have been used in 1972.

Hip Hop Death: Old Dirty Bastard (cocaine and painkiller overdose)

Britney Spears married high school friend Jason Alexander (not the Seinfeld star) for nearly a weekend. (55 hours)

Firsts and the Biggest Christmas Gifts

Bratz, Dancing Dora the Explorer, Nintendo DS, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

The Habits

Parkour, for the physically very fit.
Facebook, just for college students.
Low Carb Diets like ‘Atkins’ and ‘South Beach’
Wearing Lance Armstrong Cancer Awareness ‘Livestrong Bracelets’
Madonna, Paris Hilton, Demi Moore and Britney Spears and their fans wore ‘Kabbalah Strings’
Reading The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

2004/5 Biggest Television Shows

(according to Nielsen TV Research)
1. CSI (CBS)
2. American Idol (FOX)
3. Desperate Housewives (ABC)
4. CSI: Miami (CBS)
5. Without a Trace (CBS)
6. Survivor (CBS)
7. Grey’s Anatomy (ABC)
8. Everybody Loves Raymond (CBS)
9. Monday Night Football (ABC)
10. Two and a Half Men (CBS)

Popular Music Artists

The Biggest Pop Artists of 2004 include
Alicia Keyes, Ashlee Simpson, Beyonce, Ciara, Chingy, Fantasia, Jay-Z, JoJo, Juvenile, Kanye West, Kelly Clarkson, Lil Flip, Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, Linkin Park, Ludacris, Maroon 5, Nelly, Nickleback, Outkast, Petey Pablo, R. Kelly, Snoop Dogg, Terror Squad, Twista, Usher

(Data is compiled from charts including Billboard’s Pop, Rock, Airplay, R&B/Dance, and Singles Charts. The Hot 100 is the primary chart used for this list.)

Number One Hits of 2004

December 13, 2003 – February 13, 2004: Outkast – Hey Ya!

February 14, 2004 – February 20, 2004: Outkast featuring Sleepy Brown – The Way You Move

February 21, 2004 – February 27, 2004: Twista featuring Kanye West and Jamie Foxx – Slow Jamz

February 28, 2004 – May 21, 2004: Usher featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris – Yeah!

May 22, 2004 – July 9, 2004: Usher – Burn

July 10, 2004 – July 23, 2004: Fantasia – I Believe

July 24, 2004 – August 6, 2004: Usher – Confessions Part II

August 7, 2004 – August 20, 2004: Juvenile featuring Soulja Slim Slow Motion

August 21, 2004 – September 10, 2004: Terror Squad – Lean Back

September 11, 2004 – October 29, 2004: Ciara featuring Petey Pablo – Goodies

October 30, 2004 – December 10, 2004: Usher and Alicia Keys – My Boo

December 11, 2004 – December 31, 2005: Snoop Dogg featuring Pharrell – Drop It Like It’s Hot

Popular Movies

(according to boxofficemojo)
1. Shrek 2
2. Spider-Man 2
3. Passion of the Christ
4. Meet the Fockers
5. The Incredibles
6. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
7. The Day After Tomorrow
8. The Bourne Supremacy
9. National Treasure
10. Polar Express

50 First Dates, Aliens Vs Predator, The Bourne Supremacy, The Day After Tomorrow, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Fahrenheit 9/11, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Hotel Rwanda, I Robot, The Incredibles, Lemony Snicket’s a Series of Unfortunate Events, Meet the Fockers, National Treasure, Ocean’s Twelve, The Passion of the Christ, The Polar Express, Primer, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, Shark Tale, Shrek 2, Spider-Man 2, Troy, Van Helsing, The Village

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