Can't url Rewrite

[coldwerturkey]

I want to turn

/?page=events&show=5

into

/events/show/5.html

& I tried with .htaccess like so

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule /(.*)/show/(.*)\.html ?page=$1&show=$2

But it didn't work, so I tried something a little more basic; just the extension,

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^(.*)\.htm$ $1.php [NC]

but that didn't change anything either,

I think I can rule out blaming it on the servers because I tried it on three separate apache servers,

& I know the .htaccess file is being used/read because I currently have the following working in it..

<IfModule mod_security.c>
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off
</IfModule>

but I don't know what I did wrong?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[raven32]

Well, this works fo me:

RewriteRule ^{(.)/show/(.).html$} mod.php?page=$1&show=$2

with line start/end tokens. Also you may need correct rewrite base.

RewriteBase /path/to/your/dir

[MMeticulous]

Does this re-write somehow make it more search engine friendly? If so, how come?

Thanks!
Jeff