Editing TIMELINE (section)

===December 2004===
* December 2 - David Bieber, a 38-year-old former American marine, is sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a Leeds policeman and the attempted murder of two others following an incident on 26 December 2003. The trial judge recommends that he should never be released from prison.
* December 3 - The Colombian government extradites Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, one of the most powerful drug dealers in the world, arrested in 1995 and 2003, to the United States.
* December 6 - Terrorists attack the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing several people.
* December 8 - The biggest Chinese PC producer Lenovo announces its plan to purchase IBM's global PC business, making it the third largest world PC maker after Dell and Hewlett-Packard.
* December 8 - Dimebag Darrell, guitarist for the heavy metal bands Pantera and Damageplan is murdered onstage by Nathan Gale
* December 11 - Tests show that Ukrainian opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned with a large dose of dioxin.
* December 13 - Software giants Oracle Corporation and PeopleSoft agree to merge in a $10.3 billion deal, creating the second largest maker of business applications software.
* December 14 - The world's tallest bridge, the Millau bridge over the River Tarn in the Massif Central mountains, France, is opened by President Jacques Chirac.
* December 15 - Albanian terrorists take a bus and its passengers hostage in Athens, Greece and demand 1 million euros in ransom money.
* December 16 - The House of Lords rules that the British Government breaches human rights legislation by detaining without trial foreign nationals suspected of being terrorists.
* December 16 - IT security company Symantec Corp signs a definitive agreement to merge with Veritas Software Corp, valued at $13.5 billion, in an all-stock transaction.
* December 21 - Iraqi insurgents attack a U.S. military base in the city of Mosul, killing 22 people.
* December 22 - Armed robbers in Northern Ireland steal over £22 million from the headquarters of the Northern Bank. Unionist politicians and the PSNI blame the PIRA, and stall the peace process.
* December 25 - An historic and unprecedented snowfall occurs over portions of southern Texas during the early morning hours. Daily totals include 1.5" at Brownsville, Texas, 3.5" at McAllen, Texas, 4.4" at Corpus Christi, Texas, and 12.1" at Victoria, Texas.
* December 26 - One of the worst natural disasters in recorded history hits southeastern Asia when the strongest earthquake in 40 years hits the entire Indian Ocean region. The massive 9.3 magnitude earthquake, epicentered just off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, generates enormous tsunami waves that crash into the coastal areas of a number of nations including Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Burma and Indonesia. The official death toll in the affected countries stands at 186,983 while more than 40,000 people are still missing.
* December 26 - The re-run of the second round of the Ukrainian presidential election takes place. Opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko is declared the victor.
* December 28 - The Ukrainian transport minister, Heorhiy Kyrpa, is found shot dead, in a suspected suicide.
* December 30 - A fire in a Buenos Aires night club (República Cromagnon) kills 194 people during a rock concert.
* December 31 - Taipei 101, the current tallest skyscraper in the world, standing at a height of 509 metres (1,670 feet), officially opens.
* December 31 - Simón Trinidad, high-profiled FARC leader, is extradited to the United States, following the second extradition of a high drug dealer in a month and in 2004.
* December 31 - Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich resigns.