g1smd - 4:28 pm on Nov 2, 2012 (gmt 0)

That code does nothing for .html URLs.

Additionally, htaccess can never "make" a URL. No. It does the exact opposite. To "make" a URL you must link to it from the pages of your site. htaccess kicks in only after the link is clicked. By then it is too late to change the URL. When a rule matches the requested URL it either issues a redirect to a different URL and your browser then makes a new request for the new URL, OR it uses an internal rewrite to fetch content from a non-default location inside the server. This depends whether the RewriteRule has been configured as a redirect or as a rewrite.