April 2, 2005 (Saturday)
- Pope John Paul II dies at 9:37 p.m. Vatican time (CEST) at the age of 84, thus ending the third longest papacy in history and the beginning of a Sede vacante period. (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)[permanent dead link] (Independent)[permanent dead link]
- In Nepal, former prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala is released from house arrest and demands the return to democracy. (New Kerala) (Telegraph, India) (BBC)
- Newcastle United teammates Kieron Dyer and Lee Bowyer are sent off for fighting each other in a 3-0 home defeat to EPL rivals Aston Villa at St. James' Park (The Guardian)