2004 - The Most Eventful Year

I think 2004 was the most eventful year the world has seen since 1968.<

That year, 1968, is somewhat legendary. There’s even a book about all the things that happened in 1968. Consider: the Tet Offensive, Nixon is elected, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy are assassinated, North Korea seizes the Pueblo, the Mexico City Summer Olympics (Bob Beamon, John Carlos and Tommie Smith, Dick Fosbury), the Grenoble Winter Olympics (Peggy Fleming, Jean-Claude Killy), the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, the USSR invades Czechoslovakia, the turbulent Democratic convention in Chicago, Jackie Kennedy marries Aristotle Onassis, Tigers beat the Cardinals, movie ratings system begins, Apollo 8 orbits the moon for the first time, and the Paris Peace Talks begin. It’s hard to top that.

But 2004 beats it. Here’s my list of major, or notorious, events in 2004 (in no particular order).

  • The US Presidential election, and the discussion of moral values.
  • Reagan dies.
  • The Red Sox win.
  • The Madrid train bombings.
  • Dan Rather leaves amid controversy.
  • The Passion of the Christ movie and controversies.
  • Terrorists take over a Russian school.
  • Three hurricanes hit Florida.
  • The Summer Olympics—Michael Phelps, Paul Hamm, the USA men’s hoopsters.
  • The Pistons-Pacers brawl.
  • Gay marriage legalized in Massachusetts.
  • The Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq.
  • Goodbye Yasser Arafat. We promise not to miss you.
  • The world horrified by the beheadings in Iraq.
  • The Janet Jackson Super Bowl flap.
  • Pat Tillman killed in action.
  • Billy Graham's last crusade (probably).
  • The controversy over Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” movie.
  • “The Return of the King” wins a record number of Oscars, including every one for which it was nominated.
  • Martha Stewart goes to jail, Scott Peterson is convicted, Kobe and O’Reilly settle out of court.
  • And finally, the monster disaster of our lifetime: the tsunami. That was the real capper.

That’s a pretty impressive list. It at least gives 1968 a good run for the money as the most eventful year of my lifetime. And I haven’t even mentioned Britney’s two weddings and Julia’s twins.

Posted on January 1, 2005 06:02 PM|

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