August 2003

Tuesday 05:

A car bom explodes in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta.

Sunday 10:

The highest temperature ever recorded in the UK, 38.1°C, occurs in Kent and and Greater London. It is the first time the UK has recorded a temperature over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Monday 11:

Jemaah Islamiyah leader Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, is arrested in Bangkok, Thailand.

Thursday 14:

Widescale power blackout in the northeast United States and Canada.

Tuesday 19:

A car-bomb attack on UN headquarters in Iraq kills the agency's top envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 other employers.

Sunday 24:

US Spacecraft Voyager 2 is 71 astronomical units distant from Earth and escaping the solar system at a speed of about 3.3 AU per year (ca. 15 km/s). It will be approximately 40,000 years before Voyager 2 approaches another planetary system.

Monday 25:

Fifty-two are killed in two Islamic terrorist bomb blasts in Mumbai, India.

Tuesday 26:

Columbia Accident Investigation Board releases its final reports on Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

Wednesday 27:

Mars makes closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years, passing approximately 34,646,416 miles (55,758,006 kilometers) from Earth.

Friday 29:

Ayatollah Sayed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the Shia Muslim leader in Iraq, is assassinated in a terrorist bombing, along with nearly 100 worshippers as they leave a mosque in Najaf.