Karim said the inspiration for YouTube first came from Janet Jackson's role in 2004 Super Bowl incident when her breast was exposed during her performance, and later from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Karim could not easily find video clips of either event online, which led to the idea of a video sharing site.
On 2 March 2004, following a number of cross-border raids from Georgia into Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Dagestan, Gelayev (Ruslan Gelayev) was killed in a clash with Russian border guards while trying to get back from Dagestan into Georgia.
On April 23, China announced that a 53-year-old woman had died on April 19, its first SARS death since June. Two other cases were found, who were both healthcare workers, one of which was the deceased woman's daughter. The outbreak originated from a researcher working on the SARS virus in a lab at the Institute of Virology in Beijing, who inadvertently caught the disease and ended up spreading it to the nurse taking care of him.
On July 22, 2004, the Commission issued the 9/11 Commission Report. The report detailed the events of 9/11, found the attacks were carried out by members of al-Qaeda, and examined how security and intelligence agencies were inadequately coordinated to prevent the attacks. Formed from an independent bipartisan group of mostly former Senators, Representatives, and Governors, the commissioners explained, "We believe the 9/11 attacks revealed four kinds of failures: in imagination, policy, capabilities, and management".
On 29 July 2004, Van Basten was named the new manager of the Netherlands national team, with Van 't Schip as his assistant. Van Basten’s appointment as manager of the Netherlands sparked a little controversy at the time, since he only just started his managerial career and the media argued that he did not have a lot of experience yet.
Google's initial public offering (IPO) took place five years later, on August 19, 2004. At that time Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt agreed to work together at Google for 20 years, until the year 2024. At IPO, the company offered 19,605,052 shares at a price of $85 per share. Shares were sold in an online auction format using a system built by Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, underwriters for the deal. The sale of $1.67 billion gave Google a market capitalization of more than $23 billion.
On 18 August 2004, during an international match against the Netherlands, Ibrahimović injured Ajax teammate Rafael van der Vaart, who later accused Ibrahimović of hurting him intentionally. This led to Ibrahimović's sudden sale to Juventus on 31 August.
Williams and Reeve remained close friends until Reeve's death in 2004. Reeve had struggled for years with being quadriplegic after a horse-riding accident. Their friendship was like "brothers from another mother", according to Robin's son Zak Williams. Williams paid many of Reeve's medical bills and gave financial support to his family.
Encore, released in 2004, was another success. Its sales were partially driven by the first single, "Just Lose It", which contained slurs about Michael Jackson. On October 12, 2004, a week after the release of "Just Lose It", Jackson phoned the Los Angeles-based Steve Harvey radio show to report his displeasure with its video (which parodies Jackson's child molestation trial, plastic surgery and the 1984 incident when Jackson's hair caught fire during the filming of a commercial).
On October 25, 2004, a week before the 2004 US Presidential election, Eminem released the video for "Mosh" on the Internet. In it, Eminem gathers an army (including rapper Lloyd Banks) of Bush-administration victims and leads them to the White House. When they break in, it is learned that they are there to register to vote; the video ends with "VOTE Tuesday November 2". After Bush's reelection, the video's ending was changed to Eminem and the protesters invading the White House during a speech by the president.
Xbox Live required a subscription, as well as broadband-only connection which was not completely adopted yet, Xbox Live was a success due to better servers, features such as a buddy list, and milestone titles like Halo 2 released in November 2004, which is the best-selling Xbox video game and was by far the most popular online game for the system.
Encore is the fifth studio album by American rapper Eminem. It was released on November 12, 2004 by Aftermath Entertainment, Shady Records, and Interscope Records. Its release date was originally set for November 16, 2004, but Eminem moved the release date to four days earlier after the album was leaked to the internet. The album contains several lyrical themes, most notably Eminem's opposition to then-President of the United States George W. Bush and a parody towards Michael Jackson.
In 2004, Nintendo released the Nintendo DS, its fourth major handheld system. The DS is a dual-screened handheld featuring touch screen capabilities, which respond to either a stylus or the touch of a finger. Former Nintendo president and chairman Hiroshi Yamauchi was translated by GameScience as explaining, "If we can increase the scope of the industry, we can re-energize the global market and lift Japan out of depression – that is Nintendo's mission." Regarding lukewarm GameCube sales which had yielded the company's first reported operating loss in over 100 years, Yamauchi continued: "The DS represents a critical moment for Nintendo's success over the next two years. If it succeeds, we rise to the heavens, if it fails, we sink into hell." Due to games such as Nintendogs and Mario Kart DS, the DS became a success.