March 20:

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

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 southern port of Umm Qasr and in Nasiriyah, a key crossing over the Euphrates River

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 Kurdish Islamist group allegedly linked to al-Qaeda

March 24:

-- Iraq shoots down two US Apache helicopters

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

March 25:

-- British and US forces take control of Umm Qasr, as a fierce sandstorm slows down another flank

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

March 27:

-- 1,000 US paratroopers parachute into the 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 victory while warning the conflict could drag on

March 28:

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

March 29:

-- Suicide car bombing kills four US soldiers in central Iraq

-- US and British 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:

-- US military leaders 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

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

April 1:

-- US forces shoot dead seven women and children at a military checkpoint

-- Coalition warplanes pound Iraqi army positions at Kirkuk

April 2:

-- US forces attack four elite Republican Guard divisions at Karbala in central Iraq

-- US wins an accord from Turkey to use its territory to resupply troops

April 3:

-- US troops reach Baghdad airport, 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the city centre

-- Coalition forces say they now hold more than 9,000 Iraqi prisoners of war

April 4:

-- US forces capture large parts of Baghdad airport

-- Kurdish fighters cross a bridge near the strategic northern junction of Khazer after more than 24 hours of fierce fighting

-- Expatriate UN humanitarian workers return to Iraq

April 5:

-- US forces make their first ground advance into Baghdad, reportedly killing hundreds of Iraqis

-- The US 101st Airborne Division launches an air assault to secure the holy Shiite Muslim town of Karbala

-- British soldiers discover hundreds of human remains in an abandoned military base in southern Iraq

April 6:

-- 18 Kurds are killed, including a BBC translator, and 45 wounded near Arbil in northern Iraq when US aircraft mistakenly bomb a Kurdish-US convoy.

-- Several people are injured when a convoy evacuating the Russian ambassador from Baghdad comes under fire. Moscow says the shooting came from US forces

-- US troops fight their way around Baghdad in a drive to encircle the capital

April 7:

-- US forces move into Baghdad and seize several presidential palaces.

-- At least nine civilians are killed when a missile crashes into a residential neighbourhood in central Baghdad, witnesses say.

-- US warplanes strike building in Baghdad where US believed Iraqi leaders including Saddam and his sons were staying

-- Britain says it believes "Chemical Ali", a feared cousin of Saddam who was blamed for a gas attack that killed thousands of Kurds in 1988, has been killed in a US-British raid.

-- Two US soldiers and two journalists are killed in an Iraqi rocket attack on a US military army position south of Baghdad

April 8:

-- Bush pledges after two-day Belfast summit with Blair that the UN will play a vital role in post-war Iraq, but says power would be invested in the Iraqi people to determine their own future

-- US Marines complete their final advance into Baghdad with thousands of armoured vehicles and Humvees pour into the capital

-- A reporter for the Al-Jazeera Arabic television network is killed in a US strike on the station's offices in Baghdad

-- A US tank fires on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, where most foreign correspondents are housed. Two cameramen are killed, one working for Reuters and one for the Telecinco Spanish television station. Three Reuters correspondents are also injured.

-- British forces in Basra say they need a couple of days before they can declare southern Iraq's main city secure

April 9:

-- Jubilant crowds cheer US troops rolling through the Hababiyah district of northern Baghdad, applauding and chanting "Good, Good, Bush!", about three kilometres (two miles) from the heart of the capital.

-- British television airs scenes of looting and jubilation in the streets of Baghdad, with no US troops or Iraqi security forces in sight.

-- US forces progress through broad swathes of Baghdad and look set to take full control of the Iraqi capital after three weeks of war, correspondents and witnesses reported.

-- US warplanes strike Iraqi positions around Tikrit north of Baghdad, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein and a potent symbol of his 24-year-old rule.

-- US-backed Kurdish peshmerga fighters take a significant step in their push towards the main northern city of Mosul when they seize control of the Maqlub mountains.

-- China and Russia believe the United Nations must play a central role in post-war Iraq, the Russian foreign ministry said.

SPACE.WIRE