March 20:

-- 0235 GMT: The United States launches war on Iraq with limited air strikes on Baghdad, after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein fails to leave the country by a 0100 GMT deadline set by Washington

March 21:

-- The United States launches 1,000 cruise missiles on hundreds of targets in Baghdad and elsewhere

March 22:

-- US troops meet stiff resistance around the key port of Umm Qasr and in Nasiriyah, a key crossing over the Euphrates River

-- An Australian cameraman is killed in a suicide car bombing in northern Iraq, and a British television reporter dies in shooting in the south

March 23:

-- Iraqi television shows pictures of dead US soldiers and five captured US troops

-- US air raids pound Baghdad, the northern city of Mosul and positions held by an alleged al-Qaeda-linked Kurdish Islamist group

-- A US soldier is detained after a grenade attack that killed one US soldier and wounded 12 in northern Kuwait

March 24:

-- Iraq shoots down two US Apache helicopters

-- US commander General Tommy Franks says the coalition has 3,000 prisoners

-- Iraq's northern oil capital of Kirkuk is rocked by 24 hours of bombardment

March 25:

-- British and US forces report gains in the advance on Baghdad and take control of the deep-water port of Umm Qasr, despite a fierce sandstorm which slows another flank

-- Violent bombing on the outskirts of Baghdad

-- US President George W. Bush asks Congress to approve a package of 74.7 billion dollars to finance the war

March 26:

-- Iraq says 14 Iraqis are killed when missiles hit a Baghdad residential and market area

-- US troops kill 1,000 Iraqis in 72 hours in the Najaf region, a US officer says, but this is denied by Iraq

-- US-led forces bombard the state television building in Baghdad, taking main TV channels briefly off the air

March 27:

-- Baghdad comes under early morning bombardment, as Iraq says more than 350 civilians were killed in the first week of the war

-- 1,000 US paratroopers parachute into the mountainous Kurdish-held north

-- Mines discovered in the port of Umm Qasr delay the first shipment of British aid

-- Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair hold a summit, predicting certain victory while warning that the conflict could drag on

March 28:

-- At least 30 people are killed in an air strike on a busy Baghdad market, Iraqis say

-- A British ship carrying humanitarian aid arrives at Umm Qasr

-- Hundreds of Iraqi families flee Basra

March 29:

-- A suicide car bombing kills four US soldiers in central Iraq

-- Intense air attacks strike Baghdad

-- Coalition forces destroy a building hosting a meeting of some 200 members of Iraq's ruling Baath party in the Basra region, a US general says

March 30:

-- Iraq pledges thousands of Arab volunteers are ready to die in suicide attacks on US and British troops

-- US military leaders defend their war strategy and warn of a long battle for Baghdad

-- US withdraws war material prepositioned in southeastern Turkey

March 31:

-- US forces report their first serious battle with Iraq's elite Republican Guard south of Baghdad

-- The information ministry in Baghdad is again hit by a missile

-- Iraqi positions near the northern front line between Kurdish rebels and government forces came under coalition air strike for a third straight night

-- Hundreds of British Royal Marines launch a major assault to secure a suburb southeast of Iraq's southern city Basra

April 1:

-- US forces shoot dead seven women and children, saying that the civilian vehicle in which they were travelling failed to stop at a military checkpoint

-- US marines capture a key canal bridge near the town of Hilla after fighting which reportedly left dozens of civilians dead

-- Coalition warplanes pound Iraqi army positions at Kirkuk

April 2:

-- The battle for Baghdad begins in earnest as US forces attack four elite Republican Guard divisions at Karbala

-- US special forces rescue 19-year-old US soldier, Jessica Lynch, who was missing since her supply convoy was ambushed on March 23

-- A US military commander says that people in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Najaf met his forces with "cheers and waves".

-- President Saddam Hussein says in a message read on satellite TV that only a third of Iraq's armed forces have engaged in battle with the US-led coalition so far

-- US Secretary of State Colin Powell visits Turkey and says the government there has agreed to allow the US to use its territory to resupply troops in Iraq.

SPACE.WIRE