Unix Timestamp: 1061942400
Wednesday, August 27. 2003, 12:00:00 AM UTC

Crime: A painting by Leonardo da Vinci, the "Madonna with the Yarnwinder" is stolen from Drumlanrig Castle in Scotland, the home of the Duke of Buccleuch.

An electricity blackout cuts off power to around 500,000 people living in southeast England and brings 60% of London's underground rail network to a halt.

Perihelic opposition: Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in over 50,000 years.

Bank robber Brian Douglas Wells is killed when a time bomb around his neck explodes, allegedly in an act of betrayal by his co-conspirators.

Astronomy: Mars passes Earth at a distance of under kilometers, the closest it has been in approximately 60,000 years //www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/23/1061529376531.html//www.space.com/spacewatch/where_is_mars.html

Crime: A body of a woman is found in a shallow grave on a beach near Dundalk in the Republic of Ireland. It is suspected to be the body of Jean McConville, a young Belfast woman and mother of ten children kidnapped and murdered by the Provisional IRA in the mid 1970s. The IRA had suggested two years ago that McConville was buried in the vicinity. Previous attempts to find her remains had failed. //www.rte.ie/news/2003/0827/remains.html