August 2004

Sunday 01:

A supermarket fire kills 215 people and injures 300 in Asunción, Paraguay.

Thursday 12:

Lee Hsien Loong is sworn in as Singapore's 3rd Prime Minister.

Friday 13:

156 Congolese Tutsi refugees massacred at the Gatumba refugee camp, in Burundi.

Saturday 14:

Sales tax holiday in Massachusetts. All sales taxes are suspended on purchases of $2500 or less.

Tuesday 17:

The National Assembly of Serbia unanimously adopts new state symbols for Serbia: Boze Pravde becomes the new anthem and the coat of arms is adopted for the whole country.

Wednesday 18:

In Dublin, Ireland the Dublin Port Tunnel excavation works are completed.

Friday 20:

Talk show host Regis Philbin breaks the record for Most Hours on Camera, with 15,188.

Saturday 21:

A grenade attack on Bangladesh Awamee League, the bigest political party in Bangladesh kills 22 and injures more than a thousand, including party president Sheikh Hasina.

Sunday 22:

The Scream, the painting by Edvard Munch, is stolen at gunpoint from a museum in Oslo, Norway.

Tuesday 24:

Two airliners in Russia, carrying a total of 89 passengers, crash within minutes of each other after flying out of Domodedovo International Airport, near Moscow, leaving no survivors. Authorities suspect suicide attacks by rebels from the breakaway republic of Chechnya to be the cause of the crashes.

Tuesday 31:

Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ is released on DVD and VHS in stores across the United States, selling approximately 4.1 million copies by the end of the day.