2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 604 crashes into the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt, killing all 148 aboard, making it one of the deadliest aviation accidents in Egyptian history at the time. January 4 – NASA's MER-A (Spirit) spacecraft lands on the surface of Mars. January 6 – Construction on the tallest man-made structure to date, the Burj Khalifa begins in Dubai UAE January 8 – The RMS Queen Mary 2, at the time the largest ocean liner ever built, is christened by its namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II. January 25 – NASA's MER-B (Opportunity) spacecraft lands on the surface of Mars. January 26 – The MyDoom virus is first identified. January 28 – The animated series Winx Club premieres on the Italian television channel Rai 2. February February 4 – Mark Zuckerberg launches The Facebook, later renamed to Facebook, a social networking website for Harvard University students. February 26 – Macedonian president Boris Trajkovski is killed in a plane crash near Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. February 29 – Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide is overthrown in a coup d'état. March March 2 – A series of bombings occur in Karbala, Iraq, killing over 140 Shia Muslims commemorating the Day of Ashura. March 7 – The 2004 Greek legislative election is held to elect all 300 members of the Hellenic Parliament and the New Democracy party, led by Kostas Karamanlis, won 165 out of 300 seats, ending over 11 years of rule by the PASOK party. March 11 – Al-Qaeda bombings on Cercanías trains in Madrid, Spain, kill at least 192 people. March 14 – The PSOE wins the election in Spain; José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is elected Prime Minister of Spain, replacing José María Aznar. March 28 – Hurricane Catarina, the first ever recorded South Atlantic tropical cyclone, makes landfall in Santa Catarina, Brazil. March 29 – Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia are admitted to NATO, the largest expansion of the organization. April April 8 – The Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement is signed by the Sudanese government and two rebel groups, in order to put a pause on the War in Darfur. April 17 – Israeli helicopters fire missiles at a convoy of vehicles in