October 2004 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December
See also: October 2004 in sports
Events
- The University of Manchester, the largest university in the United Kingdom outside London, is created by the merger of the Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST. (BBC)
- Ichiro Suzuki, a Japanese baseball star now playing for Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners, breaks George Sisler's 84-year-old record for hits in a season, prompting praise from Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi and celebrations in both Seattle and Tokyo. (CNN/SI)
- Mount St. Helens in the U.S. state of Washington awakens, with a minor eruption of steam, smoke, and ash. (Fox News) (CNN)
- The government of Denmark is investigating whether it can claim ownership of the North Pole, by studying how far the underwater portion of Greenland, a Danish territory, extends. Canada and Russia are already undertaking similar investigations regarding their own claims. (Toronto Star)
- U.S. presidential debates: "Instant-response" polls of viewers of last night's U.S. presidential debate show that a majority of viewers thought the challenger, John Kerry, won the contest. (The Guardian) (BBC) (Indianapolis Star) (CBS)
- At least 19 people are killed in an explosion — suspected to be a suicide bombing — at a Shia mosque in the Pakistani city of Sialkot (located near the border of Indian-controlled Kashmir). The attack follows the killing of a leading Sunni cleric. (BBC)
- Irish presidential election, 2004: Mary McAleese is appointed to a second seven-year term as President of Ireland, without an election, when no other candidate secures the necessary nominations. This is the third time a sitting president has been reappointed unopposed, following President Seán T. O'Kelly in 1952 and President Patrick Hillery in 1983. (Irish Examiner) (RTÉ)
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- Conflict in Iraq:
- Same-sex marriage debates: The cabinet of Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero approves a bill to legalize same-sex marriage; the government believes that the bill will pass the full parliament. (CNN) (BBC)
- Conflict in Iraq: On the third day of the assault on Samarra, which has left 125 insurgents and 70 civilians dead, U.S. and Iraqi government officials say they have secured 70 percent of the city. (AP) (BBC)
- The Prime Minister of Slovenia, Anton Rop, concedes defeat in today's parliamentary elections. Early results suggest the opposition will make large gains at the expense of the current government. (BBC)
- French police announce that they have arrested Mikel Albizu Iriarte ("Mikel Antza") and Maria Soledad Iparraguirre, who are suspected of being important leaders in the Basque separatist group ETA. Sixteen other people were detained. (BBC)
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- Pope John Paul II beatifies five persons, including Anne Catherine Emmerich, a German nun, and Karl I, last emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in a ceremony in Rome. John Paul II has made a total of 1,340 beatifications (including today's), more than all previous popes combined. (Reuters)
- Todd Zeile of the New York Mets Major League Baseball franchise hit a home run in his last at-bat of his career.
- A major British influenza vaccine company, Chiron, has its manufacturing license revoked due to an outbreak of bacteria. Chiron had been expected to supply half of this season's flu vaccines in the United States. (BBC)
- U.S. presidential campaign: Incumbent United States Vice President Dick Cheney and challenger Senator John Edwards meet in Cleveland, Ohio, for the only vice presidential debate of the 2004 U.S. presidential election. (ABC) (MSNBC) (BBC)
- United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, when asked about connections between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda in an interview with the Council on Foreign Relations, states "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two". Several hours later he issues a statement saying that he was "regrettably misunderstood" and that there was "solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al-Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad". (BBC) (Reuters)
- The incumbent President of Indonesia, Megawati Sukarnoputri, concedes defeat in the country's presidential election, which took place last week. Her successor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, will be inaugurated on October 20. (NEWS.com.au)
- Iran announces that its Shahab-3 missile has been modified to increase its range (originally 810 miles (1,300 km)) to 1,250 miles (2,000 km). This puts parts of Europe — and all of the Middle East — within range of Iran's missiles for the first time. (Reuters) (The Scotsman)
- Afghanistan presidential election: With elections due in four days, Hamid Karzai makes a public appearance in Ghazni, his only campaign rally outside of Afghanistan's capital, Kabul. One of Karzai's main opponents, General Abdul Rashid Dostum makes an appearance at Mazari Sharif, whilst another, Yunus Qanuni, addresses crowds in the capital. (BBC)
- American physicists David Gross, David Politzer, and Frank Wilczek are awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for "the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction". (Nobel Prize)
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
October 6, 2004
- Appearing before the United States Senate Armed Services Committee, Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group announces that the group found no evidence that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had produced any weapons of mass destruction since 1991, when UN sanctions were imposed. This directly contradicts the main argument used by the George W. Bush administration for invading Iraq in 2003. (CNN) (BBC)
- A team of Japanese and Mongolian archaeologists announce that they have found the 13th century palace of Genghis Khan, at a site about 150 miles east of Ulan Bator, Mongolia, and that his tomb may be located nearby. (CNN) (Japan Times) (Scotsman)
- Conflict in Iraq: A suicide car bomb kills 16 and injures 24 people outside an Iraqi National Guard recruiting center in Anah, a roadside bomb kills a civilian and wounds four policemen in Basra, and a Kurdish tribal leader and his companion are shot dead in Mosul. (Reuters)
- Same-sex marriage in Canada: The Supreme Court of Canada begins three days of hearings into the federal government's reference of a draft bill to legalize same-sex marriage. The court will review the bill's constitutionality, hearing arguments from groups on either side of the debate. A ruling is not expected for months. (CBC)
- A British Royal Navy rescue ship reaches the HMCS Chicoutimi (SSK 879), which is adrift off the Irish coast following an electrical fire en route to Halifax yesterday. Heavy seas have impeded rescue efforts, and one crewman has died being airlifted to hospital. (BBC)
- The European Commission recommends that talks be opened with Turkey aiming for it to join the European Union. (BBC)
- Mark Chapman, the man who killed John Lennon, is denied parole for the third consecutive time. (BBC)
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
- Three people, including a 15-year-old boy, are killed after Israel shells the town of Beit Lahiya. (BBC)
- Three Hamas militants are killed after infiltrating the Israeli settlement of Kfar Darom. One of the militants blew up when hit by Israeli gunfire, killing a Thai worker in addition to himself. The other two militants were killed by IDF forces. Gaza Strip. (Haaretz) (INN [Israel])
- The UNRWA denies Israel's claim that it has detained 13 of its staff in Gaza. A spokesman said a member of the Gaza staff had been in detention for two years, but knew of no one else in Israeli custody. Israel qualified its earlier statement, admitting that the number 13 referred to people detained in the past four years, some of whom are no longer in custody. (BBC)
- Israeli scientists Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko and American Irwin Rose are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation". (Haaretz) (Nobel Prize)
- In Canada, a last minute compromise between the current minority federal government and the two largest opposition parties ends a dispute over the wording of the throne speech and avoids a premature dissolution of parliament. (Toronto Star)
- The FBI seizes the servers of the open-publishing network Indymedia in the U.S. and the UK, disabling Indymedia websites in many countries. No reason was given. (IMC: 1, 2)
- Three car bombs are detonated in Egyptian towns in the Sinai Peninsula frequented by Israeli tourists. The largest explosion, which killed at least 34 and wounding 105, was at the Hilton Taba in Taba, near the border with Israel. The other two explosions occurred at the towns of Ras al-Sultan and Nuweiba, killing two Israelis and four Egyptians. A group calling itself Jamayia al-Islamia al-Alamiya ("World Islamist Group") later claims responsibility and threatens further attacks. (Al Jazeera) (Haaretz) (The Australian) (ABC) (CNN)
- HMCS Chicoutimi (SSK 879), one of Canada's four Victoria-class submarines, is taken under tow, after being adrift for two days following an onboard fire that crippled the boat. One member of the crew has died. (BBC: 1, 2) (Pravda)
- Austrian author Elfriede Jelinek is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for "her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power". (Nobel Prize) (ABC)
- Two bombs explode in the Pakistani city of Multan, killing 39 people at a memorial for murdered Sunni leader Azam Tariq. (BBC)
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- Norodom Sihanouk, King of Cambodia, announces his abdication. His successor will be chosen by a special council. (CNN)
- Typhoon Ma-on, the strongest storm to strike eastern Japan in a decade, kills six people in the Tokyo area. (Channel News Asia)
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Palestinian witnesses say that a missile fired from an Israeli helicopter destroyed a home in the Gaza Strip town of Jabaliya, killing a schoolteacher and wounding six others. (BBC)
- Somalia's transitional parliament elects Abdullahi Yusuf, a former army officer, interim president. He will be Somalia's first head of state since 1991, when tribal warlords overthrew the ruling military dictatorship. The election was held in Nairobi, Kenya, since the situation in Somalia remains dangerous. (BBC) (ABC)
- Conflict in Iraq: Two car bombs explode in Baghdad, killing at least 10 people and wounding 17, including a U.S. soldier. (AP)
- 2004 Atlantic hurricane season: Tropical Storm Matthew floods southeastern Louisiana, dropping as much as 7 inches (180 mm) of rain. (CNN)
- Christopher Reeve who played Superman in the movie passes away.
- The Saudi Arabian Interior Ministry requests that all non-Muslims currently in Saudi Arabia refrain from eating, drinking or smoking in public. "Authorities will take deterrent measures such as terminating work contracts of, and deporting, violators" [1]
- War on Terrorism: Human Rights Watch issues a report charging that the United States government's treatment of certain suspected terrorists being held outside the U.S. is in violation of U.S. treaties, international human rights law, and the Geneva Conventions. (BBC)
- Conflict in Iraq: A rocket attack in southern Baghdad kills two U.S. soldiers and injures five others, while in the northern city of Mosul a suicide car bomb detonated near a U.S. military convoy kills a U.S. soldier and two Iraqis and injures 27 others. (ABC/AP) (News.com.au)
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
- Finn Kydland and Edward Prescott are awarded the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for "their contributions to dynamic macroeconomics: the time consistency of economic policy and the driving forces behind business cycles". (Nobel Foundation)
- Rescue efforts end in Taba, Egypt at the site of Thursday's bombing. Egypt and Israeli forensic experts announce that they have identified 12 Israelis, 6 Egyptians, 2 Italians, 1 Russian, and 13 Eastern Europeans among those killed. (Haaretz) (Israeli MFA)
- Workers in Nigeria begin a four day general strike in protest of fuel price increases caused by the last year's repeal of government subsidies. (BBC)
- Early results in the first round of Lithuania's general election show the opposition Labour Party winning the largest proportion of the vote. (BBC)
- Federal, state, and local officials in the U.S. state of Nevada are gathering information regarding allegations that a private voter registration firm, Voters Outreach of America, destroyed registration forms collected from Democratic voters while submitting those collected from Republican voters. (KLAS-TV)
- Cambodia's legislature votes to allow a nine-member council to choose a successor to King Norodom Sihanouk. It is expected the council will choose Prince Norodom Sihamoni. (VOA)
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
- The Nigerian government announces that last month, Nigerian Sharia courts sentenced two women, one of whom is pregnant, to death by stoning on charges of committing adultery, while acquitting the two men involved. The sentence may still be appealed. (Reuters)
- The government of Saudi Arabia announces that women will be prohibited from running as candidates or voting in the country's upcoming municipal elections. The elections, the first in Saudi Arabia since the 1960s, will be held from February 10 to April 21, 2005. (CNN)
- Conflict in Iraq: A U.S. Air Force air strike destroys Haji Hussein, the most popular restaurant in insurgent-controlled Fallujah. The U.S. says the restaurant was being used by militants loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Witnesses say two civilian security guards were killed in the attack. (BBC) (ABC Australia) (Reuters)
- The trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević for alleged war crimes has resumed after a month's delay. (BBC)
- Pakistan test fires a nuclear-capable missile with a range of 1,500 km (930 miles), sufficient to reach most cities in neighboring India. Pakistan and India routinely test their missiles. (BBC)(The Hindu [India])
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