On this day
Revisit the music, news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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Producer David Stone reports that Broadway production of musical Wicked, based on characters from The Wizard of Oz, has recouped its $14 million capitalization after nearly 14 months (M)
Sydney Davis, 12-year-old girl with diabetes in North Caldwell, NJ, is selling blue wristbands door to door to raise money for research at Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York; has sold 10,000 bracelets for $2 each in four weeks; Berrie Center is now selling them for $5 each; photos (M)
Clyde Haberman column questions decision by New York State Department of Motor Vehicles to include advertisements for Ford Motor and other marketers in registration renewal mailings t (M)
Growing demand from China promises lucrative future for South Africa's iron ore and manganese companies if they can find way to move metals more than 500 miles from inland mines on edge of Kalahari Desert to coastal ports; South Africa's government-run rail company does not have enough capacity and has been slow to do anything to improve situation; mining companies like Kumba Resources, Africa's largest iron ore producer, are so frustrated that they are even offering to buy their own trains; China imported 157 million tons of iron ore in 2003, and is expected to import 205 million tons this year; South Africa's share of Chinese market has fallen to 4 percent from about 12 percent 10 years ago; photo (M)
Prescription drug ad market is not looking nearly as healthy as it seemed earlier in year now that Pfizer Inc has suspended its multi-million-dollar consumer advertising campaign for arthritis drug Celebrex and Merck & Co has taken its similar--and similarly advertised--drug Vioxx off market; Pfizer spent $87.6 million in major media spending on Celebrex ads last year and was on its way to surpassing that this year; Merck's decision in late September to withdraw Vioxx brought abrupt end to direct-to-consumer ad spending that had run to $78 million last year; graph (M)
Music on My Birthday
The Top 50 albums for the chart week of December 15, 2004, covering December 21, 2004.
Jay-Z/Linkin Park
U2
Kelly Clarkson
Eminem
Nas
2004Autar Singh Paintal, Indian physiologist and neurologist (born 1925)[†]
Autar Singh Paintal was an Indian medical scientist who made pioneering discoveries in the area of neurosciences and respiratory sciences. He is the first Indian Physiologist to become the Fellow of the Royal Society, London.
2004Iraq War: A suicide bomber kills 22 at the forward operating base next to the main U.S. military airfield at Mosul, Iraq, the single deadliest suicide attack on American soldiers in Iraq.[†]
The Iraq War, also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a prolonged conflict in Iraq from 2003 to 2011. It began with the invasion by a United States-led coalition, which resulted in the overthrow of the Ba'athist government of Saddam Hussein. The conflict persisted as an insurgency arose against coalition forces and the newly established Iraqi government. US forces were officially withdrawn in 2011. In 2014, the US became re-engaged in Iraq, leading a new coalition under Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve, as the conflict evolved into the ongoing Islamic State insurgency.
In 2004, the world population was approximately 6,503,377,772 people[†]