January 6 - In Graniteville, South Carolina, a train carrying a cargo of chlorine gas collides with a parked train, releasing a toxic cloud which kills 9 and injures 200. The town of 5,400 is evacuated.
The same storm which pounded the US earlier in the month slams into England and Scandinavia. At least 13 are dead among hurricane force winds and the worst flooding in northwest England in 40 years.
A Royal Air ForceC-130 Hercules transport plane crashes in Iraq, killing 10 British servicemen. Iraqi insurgents release a video claiming to have shot the aircraft down using a missile.
A massive suicide bomb blast in central Beirut killed Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik Hariri and at least 15 other people. At least 135 other people were also hurt.
Around 59 people are killed and 200 injured in a fire at mosque in Tehran, Iran.
February 15 - More than 200 people have been killed by a blast at a mine in in Fuxin north-east China.
February 22 - More than 500 people have been killed and over 1,000 injured after entire villages were flatted in an earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale, hit the Zarand region of Kerman province in southern Iran.
February 26 - Hosni Mubarak the president of Egypt ordered the constitution changed to allow multi-candidate presidential elections before September 2005 by asking parliament to amend Article 76 of the Egyptian constitution.
At 19.17 the 3500-ton freighter, M/V Karen Danielsen, crashes into the Western bridge of the Great Belt Bridge of Denmark, 800m from Funen. All traffic across the bridge is closed, effectively separating Denmark in two.
The People's Republic of China ratifies an anti-secession law aimed at preventing Taiwan from declaring independence.
Nearly one million people gathered for an opposition rally in Beirut, a month after the death of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The largest rally in Lebanon history.
March 16 - Suspects Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri in the bombing of the Air India Flight 182 in 1985 are found to be not guilty on all accounts.
A suspected suicide bomber in Doha, Qatar, killed one Briton and injured about 12 other people.
A time bomb exploded in a Muslim shrine in Quetta, southwestern Pakistan, killing at least 29 people and wounding 40.
A mine blast occurred at the Xishui coal mine in Shuozhou and rocked nearby Kangjiayao coal mine. The death toll is up to 59.
March 20 - At least 250 people in Japan are injured and at least one killed by when a magnitude 7 earthquake struck west of Kyushu Island, just 9km (5.5 miles) below the ocean floor.
March 24 - The "Tulip Revolution" in Kyrgyzstan (ex-USSR republic) reaches it's climax when president Askar Akayev is overthrown and the protesting crowd storms the Government House. Acts of looting and marauding occured everywhere in country's capital immediately after these events.
A suicide bomber blows himself up in Cairo's Khan al Khalili market, killing two foreign tourists and wounding 17 others. A group called "Islamic Pride Brigades" claims responsibility.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators, many of them supporters of Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr, marched through Baghdad denouncing the US occupation of Iraq, two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, and rallied in the square where his statue was toppled in 2003.
April: (From "The Martian Chronicles") The house of Usher II opens. August: Elder People come to Mars. September: A martian lives among the humans, November: Nuclear siege befalls Earth.
December 24: The Pluto's Kiss Virus infects and shuts down every computer in the world, caused by a 10-year old boy. From the .hackanime.
