April 2, 2005

See also April 1, 2005 - April 2005 - April 3, 2005

• Pope John Paul II died at 9:37 p.m. Vatican time (CEST) at the age of 84, thus beginning the period of Sede vacante. (Wikinews)
• Sumatran earthquake: Nine Australian Defence Force personnel are missing, presumed dead, after a Sea King helicopter crash on the Indonesian island of Nias. Two personnel survive. (Wikinews)
• Scientists at the California Institute of Technology devise a method to weigh the smallest mass ever, a cluster of xenon atoms weighing a few zeptograms, or billionths of a trillionth of a gram. (BBC) (AIP Bulletin)
• Riccardo Muti resigns as music Director of La Scala opera house, Milan after 18 years, following a vote of no-confidence by 700 orchestra members and staff last month. (BBC)
• In France, radical wine producers attack the offices of agriculture ministries in Montpellier and Carcassonne with dynamite. A group calling itself Comité Régional d'Action Viticole (Crav) takes responsibility.(BBC) (WineNews, SA) (Independent)
• In Nepal, former prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala is released from house arrest and demands the return to democracy. (New Kerala) (Telegraph, India) (BBC)