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

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 in Washington, 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

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 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

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

April 8:

-- Bush pledges after two-day Belfast summit with Blair that the UN will play a vital role in post-war Iraq

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

-- Three journalists are killed in two separate incidents in the Iraqi capital, one of them a reporter for Al-Jazeera television, and two cameramen for Reuters and Spanish network Telecinco

April 9:

-- US marines pull down huge statue of Saddam in central Baghdad, as scenes of jubilation spread throughout the capital

-- Crowds cheer US troops rolling through the Hababiyah district of northern Baghdad, applauding and chanting "Good, Good, Bush!

-- US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the "tide is turning" against the Iraqi government and that the "regime has been dealt a serious blow"

-- US warplanes strike Iraqi positions around Tikrit north of Baghdad, Saddam's stronghold

-- The Iraqi ambassador to the UN says "the game is over"

April 10

-- US forces face gun battles along the Tigris River in Baghdad and around the presidential palace

-- US-backed Kurdish forces take possession of the centre of northern Iraq's key oil city of Kirkuk without a fight

-- Iraqis loot the luxury villas of Saddam's family and cronies

-- US forces continued to move north towards Tikrit

-- One US soldier is killed in a suicide bombing in Baghdad. A US military source says the attack took place in Saddam City, an impoverished suburb in the north of Baghdad

April 11

-- US and Kurdish fighters claim control of Iraq's third city of Mosul and move to secure oil-rich Kirkuk, shoring up their foothold in the north

-- Twenty-five people are injured as shopkeepers in central Baghdad open fire on looters for the first time since US troops entered the capital

-- The United States issues a list of 55 key individuals wanted by coalition forces as they gain control of Iraq

SPACE.WIRE