apache htaccess mod rewrite with php querystring urls

Hi, I realize this isnt specificaly related to php, but most php developers are familiar with this. My website uses an index.php file to load all content with a template, using urls like so: http://www.foo.com/index.php?page=splash.html In the same directory, there is a file called splash.html, but what I would like to do is that if the source file is called, the php file would load instead. So typing in: http://www.foo.com/splash.html would bring up: http://www.foo.com/index.php?page=splash.html instead. The solution I found was to use an .htaccess file, but it only brings up a 403 forbidden access error everytime. ModRewrite is enabled, so what could be the problem? Here is the code I used: RewriteEngine on RewriteBase / RewriteRule ^[A-Za-z0-9]\.html$ /index.php?page=$1 thanks for your help :) -steph