At about July 1988,the government declared the Kyat 45 and 90 notes as void and useless without compensiation.(the previous Military Secretary General who was very superstitious assumed 45 and 90 as his lucky numbers,hence issuing monetary notes of those values).
This left many poor students unsatisfied,and broke of course.
on the 7th July 1988 (7788) the university students held a mass protest against the government's move. As the protests get heated up, government troops opened fired at the students.About 110 students lost their lives in this protest.A monument was built by the students later on to commemorate the dead students. This is later to be taken down by the government.
The bloody experience of 7th July never faded from the mind of the students and the general public.

On the 8th August 1988 (8888),massive protests took place in major cities.This slowly spread to all over the nation.The protests were lead by Buddhist monks and student leaders. Each  township(villages) were sealed off by the public, to disrupt the movement of government informants. Checkpoints were setup by the public, every soldier or military informant who try to cross it are immediately executed.Normally beheading. Police stations, village/township administrative offices and army recruiting centres were burnt down.

As the protests become nationwide, with every village every citizen, defying the curfew and demanding the return to public rule,orders were given to the soldiers- to shoot anyone at sight.Massive number of soldiers and reserves where deployed, heavily armed.No one was spared- not even the buddhist monks who are very revered in this predominantly buddhist country.

After sometime, the protests died down, at this time, there has been 3000 deaths, mainly civilians.This however, is not the end to the killing spree by the government. Pictures of rioters taken during the uprising were sought out one by one and killed on the spot.This forced thousands of activists to flee the country or go into hiding.
Government puts the final casualty figure at 2000 deaths.The  findings of the Non-government organisation, however disputes this claim.They believe more then 10'000 were killed, including soldiers as well(majority being civilians).About 200-300 monks were also killed.The other monks who supported the uprising were derobed (banished from the Monk order) by the government.

Most Muslims, however, abstained from the riots.This is mainly due to the fact that they've already been victimised- being Muslims in non-Muslim country. Another factor, as I assume, will be the fact that Muslims dont really relate themselves to Burma, rather to their ancestrial hometown-Pakistan/India/Bangladesh.
Some rare images from the uprising

On the footnote, if you dont see me anymore after this day, know that I've been abducted by Burmese Intelligance- either killed or imprisoned indefinately.(inshaAllah, Allah forbid)

Allah Madat!