April_2004

2004 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December

• April 1, 2004 - Faroese Prime Minister\'s Office announces that from then on the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister\'s Office would use a new version of the Faroese Coat of Arms. The colours were inspired from the Merkið (flag) and yellow/gold was added. The new Coat of Arms depicts a Ram on a blue shield ready to defend. It can be used by the Government Ministries and by Faroese embassies, but some still use older versions of the Coat of Arms.
• April 3, 2004 - A bomb explosion in a Madrid flat kills a Spanish policeman and five terrorists suspected of responsibility for the Madrid train bombings on March 11.
• April 4, 2004 - Serious fighting breaks out in Najaf, Sadr City, and Basra in Iraq as Shia insurgents supporting Muqtada al-Sadr rise against coalition forces.
• April 5, 2004 - Queen Elizabeth II begins a state visit to France to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale.
• April 8, 2004 - Darfur conflict: The Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement is signed by the Sudanese government and two rebel groups.
• April 8, 2004 - Three Japanese citizens are taken hostage in Iraq.
• April 8, 2004 - Former Japanese famous economist, professor at Waseda University graduate school Kazuhide Uekusa was arrested on the escalator of JR Shinagawa Station because of trying to peep under high school girl\'s skirt with his hand mirror.
• April 9, 2004 - David R. Stewart commits his final strip search prank call to a McDonald\'s restaurant in Mount Washington, Kentucky.
• April 16, 2004 - India defeats Pakistan in their first cricket tour in 14 years.
• April 17, 2004 - Israeli helicopters fire missiles at a convoy of vehicles in the Gaza Strip, killing the Gaza leader of Hamas, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi.
• April 20, 2004 - In Iraq, 12 mortars were fired on Abu Ghraib Prison by insurgents. Twenty two detainees were killed and 92 wounded. [1]
• April 21, 2004 - Mordechai Vanunu, who revealed an Israeli nuclear weapons programme in the 1980s, is released from prison in Israel after an 18 year term for treason.
• April 22, 2004 - Two trains carrying explosives and fuel collide in the North Korean town of Ryongchon, killing 161 people, injuring 1,300 and destroying thousands of homes.
• April 22, 2004 - The last coal mine in France closes, ending nearly 300 years of coal mining.
• April 24, 2004 - Referendums on the Annan Plan for Cyprus, which proposes to re-unite the island of Cyprus, take place in both the Republic of Cyprus controlled part and Turkish controlled parts. Although the Turks vote in favour, the Greeks reject the proposal.
• April 28, 2004 - Abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is revealed on the television show 60 Minutes II.

Arts and culture

• April 2, 2004 to 8 - TV Tokyo in Japan premieres eight shows during the first week of the month.
• April 6, 2004 - A previously unreleased Johnny Cash album called My Mother\'s Hymn Book is released less than a year after his death on September 12, 2003.
• April 17, 2004 - Cartoon Network\'s Toonami moves from 5 PM to 7 PM (primetime) and extends by four hours (from two to six).
• April 20, 2004 - Fear Factory returns after their 2002 breakup with the new album Archetype.
• April 26, 2004 - Deborah Voigt, sacked by Covent Garden for being too fat for an opera role, makes her recital debut to a rapturous reception at Carnegie Hall.
• April 28, 2004 - 30 St Mary Axe, London (the Swiss Re building), designed by Norman Foster is completed.
• Month of April, 2004 - the Toronto Maple Leafs eliminate the Ottawa Senators from the NHL playoffs for the fourth time in five years. Subsequently eliminated in short order in the next round, this marks the beginning of a minimum three year drought for the Toronto Maple Leafs from the playoffs.

Transportation

• April - The 1742th Circuit Court of Appeals in Pierre, South Dakota, rules that the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad may use eminent domain to purchase land in South Dakota in order to build the railroad\'s extension into Wyoming\'s Powder River Basin.
• April - Great North Eastern Railways, operators of services on the East Coast Main Line in England and Scotland, introduce 802.11b wireless LAN access to the Internet on their Mallard Intercity 225 trains.
• April 1, 2004 - High speed train service is inaugurated in Korea between Seoul and Pusan; the trains make the trip in 2 hours and 40 minutes.
• April 4, 2004 - Alaska Airlines discontinues service between San Francisco and Tucson.
• April 18, 2004 - Connex takes over the half of the Melbourne suburban rail network formerly operated by M>Train.
• April 22, 2004 - In the Ryongchon disaster, a flammable cargo explodes at the railway station in the town of Ryongchŏn, North Korea, near the border with China; the explosion occurs only a few hours after North Korean leader Kim Jong-il passed through the station en route back to the capital from a secret meeting in China.
• April 29, 2004 - The European Railway Agency [2], headquartered in Valenciennes/Lille, France, is formed [3].

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