August 8

After fleeing Iran in the face of outrageous persecution because of his opposition to the Shah of Iran, Iranian national Merhan Karimi Nasseri sought and received refugee status in Belgium. After some time in Belgium, Nasseri for some reason thought it would be a good idea to move to France. On the 8th in 1988, Nasseri arrived at the Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris. When asked for his passport he claimed that his identification papers had been lost when he was the victim of a mugging and he was refused admission to France. Now in addition to being a refugee from his own country he found himself in a very gray area. He couldn’t go back or forward and having no other attractive alternative, Nasseri chose to remain in the airport’s main terminal building until August 2006.