A lot sure has happened since 2004. For those of you keeping track, that’s the year most of the guys and gals getting ready to graduate from Fountain Hills High School were dropped off for their first day of kindergarten.

In honor of this Friday’s commencement ceremony, I decided to take a look back and see what was going on 13 years ago.

This stroll down memory lane has been something of a tradition of mine over the past decade of writing for The Times, and I hope that it’s fun for the seniors and their families (as well as the rest of us) to reminisce about the goings-on from all those years ago.

Hopefully this year’s graduates are aiming for the stars, because that’s exactly what we were doing back in 2004. In fact, the Mars Rover successfully landed on the Red Planet on Jan. 4 of that year.

That was also the year of Janet Jackson’s notorious Super Bowl XXXVIII wardrobe malfunction, which was immediately followed by a 32-29 win for the New England Patriots over the Carolina Panthers. Tom Brady played quarterback that game, so I suppose not all that much has changed in the world of sports.

Perhaps one of the most influential advancements in the lives of this year’s graduates actually happened in February of 2004. That’s when Mark Zuckerberg introduced us all to a little social network known as Facebook.

Any racing fans in the audience? Well, the 2004 Daytona 500 was won by none other than Dale Earnhardt, Jr. on Feb. 15.

For you movie buffs in the audience, you might recall that 2004 was the year that The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King wrapped up the original trilogy with the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Another big tech event to occur in 2004 was the launch of Gmail. Believe it or not, it arrived on April 1.

Barry Bonds set the sports world ablaze just a couple weeks later, hitting his 661st home run in order to surpass the former all-time record set by Willie Mays.

Since the 2017 Kentucky Derby was just a couple of weeks ago, you may be interested in knowing that the 2004 race was won by Smarty Jones. That’s the name of the horse, of course. His rider was Stewart Elliott.

Just a few days later, the world of television bid farewell to Friends at the conclusion of its 10th season. Then, exactly one week later, Frasier also concluded. My understanding is that quite a few people still haven’t recovered from that one-two punch.

Likely of greater interest to kindergarteners in 2004 was the arrival of Shrek 2 on May 15.

On May 17, 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage and, just a day later, Diamondbacks pitcher Randy Johnson became the 16th pitcher to throw a perfect game at the professional level.

Back to movie news, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the third of the seven-film series, arrived in late May.

By mid-June, the Detroit Pistons bested the Los Angeles Lakers four games to one to claim the 58th NBA Championship. A month later, Martha Stewart went to jail. The two events, as far as we know, were unconnected.

Come August and we were all yammering about the Olympic Games, which had returned to Athens, Greece. That was only slightly less important than the MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year going to OutKast for “Hey Ya!”

The 56th Emmy Awards were all about The Sopranos and Arrested Development in 2004, shows kindergarteners probably shouldn’t have been watching.

For those of you who got completely absorbed in the TV show Lost, it actually began its run on Sept. 22 of that year.

Moving into late October and we’ve got the Boston Red Sox winning their first World Series in a whopping 86 years.

For those youngsters who enjoy video games, 2004 was the year that Halo 2 released. In completely unrelated news, 74-time Jeopardy Champion Ken Jennings had his impressive run come to a close on Nov. 30, raking in a total of $2,520,700.

A lot happened in 2004, but that’s all in the past now. What matters to the graduating class of 2017 is the future, and we’re certainly looking forward to seeing what they do with it.