700 people were taken hostage by 50 Chechen rebels at the Moscow Ball-Bearing Plant’s Palace of Culture, in Moscow, Russia. The second act of the popular musical, “Nord Ost”, was just beginning when an armed man walked onstage and fired a machine gun into the air. The Chechen Army terrorists demanded that the Russian military forces immediately leave Chechnya, a war torn region that had been struggling to assert its independence from Russian authorities. After a 57 hour stand-off with two hostages already being killed, the Russian special forces released a narcotic gas, killing nearly 120 hostages and all of the 40 attackers.