On this day

January 4, 2004

Revisit the music, news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.

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Headlines from January 4, 2004

Careers Settle Within a Thriving Home

By Lisa Belkin

Life's Work column looks at how Jim and Kim Derk of Evansville, Ind, are able to care for their large family through generous family leave policy and flexible hours program at General Electric, where they both work; drawing (M)

Job Market845 words
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India and Pakistan Offer Hint of Thaw

By Unknown Author

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India stepped onto Pakistani soil for the first time in four years, his mere presence feeding the hopes for peace between India and Pakistan.

Foreign Desk149 words
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BUSH '05 BUDGET SEEKS TO REIN IN DOMESTIC COSTS

By Robert Pear

Bush administration officials, facing record budget deficit, say they have drafted election-year budget that will rein in growth of domestic spending without alienating politically influential constituencies; say Bush's proposed budget for 2005 fiscal year will control rising cost of housing vouchers for poor, require some veterans to pay more for health care, slow growth in spending on biomedical research and merge or eliminate some job training and employment programs; moves are intended to trim programs without damaging any essential services; administration officials say that even with improving economic outlook, federal budget deficit in current fiscal year is likely to exceed last year's deficit of $374 billion (M)

National Desk1133 words
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The Retro City

By Michael Johns

Michael Johns article on retro urbanism that has become dominant architectural and design style in New York, San Francisco, Chicago and other American cities; photos (L)

The City Weekly Desk2693 words
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Music on My Birthday

Billboard 200

The Top 50 albums for the chart week of December 31, 2003, covering January 4, 2004.

  1. 1
    Album cover for The Diary Of Alicia Keys by Alicia Keys

    The Diary Of Alicia Keys

    Alicia Keys

    Last week
    2
    Peak
    1
    Weeks
    3
  2. 2
    Album cover for Shock'n Y'All by Toby Keith

    Shock'n Y'All

    Toby Keith

    Last week
    4
    Peak
    1
    Weeks
    7
  3. 3
    Album cover for Now 14 by Various Artists

    Now 14

    Various Artists

    Last week
    3
    Peak
    3
    Weeks
    7
  4. 4
    Album cover for Speakerboxxx/The Love Below by OutKast

    Speakerboxxx/The Love Below

    OutKast

    Last week
    6
    Peak
    1
    Weeks
    13
  5. 5
    Album cover for Closer by Josh Groban

    Closer

    Josh Groban

    Last week
    5
    Peak
    3
    Weeks
    6

Notable Births

Victor Wembanyama

2004Victor Wembanyama, French basketball player[†]

Victor Wembanyama, nicknamed "Wemby" and "The Alien", is a French professional basketball player for the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Considered one of the best basketball prospects of his generation due to his rare combination of height, length, defense, speed, ball-handling skills, shooting range and agility, he was selected first overall by the Spurs in the 2023 NBA draft.

Notable Deaths

Brian Gibson (director)

2004Brian Gibson, English director and screenwriter (born 1944)[†]

Brian Gibson was an English film and television director.

Joan Aiken

2004Joan Aiken, English author (born 1924)[†]

Joan Delano Aiken was an English writer specialising in supernatural fiction and children's alternative history novels. In 1999 she was awarded an MBE for her services to children's literature. For The Whispering Mountain, published by Jonathan Cape in 1968, she won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a book award judged by a panel of British children's writers, and she was a commended runner-up for the Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British writer. She won an Edgar Allan Poe Award (1972) for Night Fall.

John Toland (historian)

2004John Toland, American historian and author (born 1912)[†]

John Willard Toland was an American writer and historian. He is best known for a biography of Adolf Hitler and a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of World War II-era Japan, The Rising Sun.

Historical Events

Spirit (rover)

2004Spirit, a NASA Mars rover, lands successfully on Mars at 04:35 UTC.[†]

Spirit, also known as MER-A or MER-2, is a Mars robotic rover, active from 2004 to 2010. Spirit was operational on Mars for 2208 sols or 3.3 Martian years. It was one of two rovers of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Spirit landed successfully within the impact crater Gusev on Mars at 04:35 Ground UTC on January 4, 2004, three weeks before its twin, Opportunity (MER-B), which landed on the other side of the planet. Its name was chosen through a NASA-sponsored student essay competition. The rover got stuck in a "sand trap" in late 2009 at an angle that hampered recharging of its batteries; its last communication with Earth was on March 22, 2010.

Mikheil Saakashvili

2004Mikheil Saakashvili is elected President of Georgia following the November 2003 Rose Revolution.[†]

Mikheil "Misha" Saakashvili is a Georgian and Ukrainian politician and jurist. He was the third president of Georgia for two consecutive terms from 25 January 2004 to 17 November 2013. He is the founder and former chairman of Georgia's United National Movement party. From May 2015 until November 2016, Saakashvili was the governor of Ukraine's Odesa Oblast. After resigning, he was temporarily exiled, but returned in 2019 under a new President. Saakashvili returned to Georgia in 2021, and has been imprisoned there since then.

Historical Context for January 4, 2004

In 2004, the world population was approximately 6,503,377,772 people[†]