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This Timeline has been compiled from the following sources:
BBC News.com, "Timeline: Iraq" (2001) http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_737000/737483.stm;
CNN.com, "The Unfinished War: A Decade Since Desert Storm" (2001) http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/gulf.war/unfinished/war/;
New York Times.com, "Key Events in Iraq and U.S. Relations" (1998) http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/121798iraq-us-timeline.html.

1920 25 April - Iraq is placed under British mandate.

1921 23 August - Faysal, son of Hussein Bin Ali, the Sharif of Mecca, is crowned Iraq's first king.

1932 3 October - Iraq becomes an independent state.

1958 14 July - The monarchy is overthrown in a military coup led by Brig Abd-al-Karim Qasim and Col Abd-al-Salam Muhammad Arif. Iraq is declared a republic and Qasim becomes prime minister.

1963 8 February - Qasim is ousted in a coup led by the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party(ASBP). Arif becomes president.

1963 18 November - The Ba'thist government is overthrown by Arif and a group of officers.

1968 17 July - A Ba'thist led-coup ousts Arif’s successor and Gen Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr becomes president.

1970 11 March - The Revolution Command Council (RCC) and Mullah Mustafa Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), sign a peace agreement.

1972 - A 15-year Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation is signed between Iraq and the Soviet Union.

1972 - Iraq nationalizes the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC).

1974 - In implementation of the 1970 agreement, Iraq grants limited autonomy to the Kurds but the KDP rejects it.

1975 March - At a meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Algiers, Iraq and Iran sign a treaty ending their border disputes. Iraq seals the border and slaughters Kurds.

1979 16 July - President Al-Bakr resigns and is succeeded by Vice-President Saddam Hussein.

1980 4 September - Iran shells Iraqi border towns (Iraq considers this as the start of the Iran/Iraq war).

1980 17 September - Iraq abrogates the 1975 treaty with Iran. The U.S. opposes any Security Council action to condemn the invasion. U.S. soon removes Iraq from its list of nations supporting terrorism and allows U.S. arms to be transferred to Iraq. U.S. provides intelligence information to Iraq.

1984 U.S. restores diplomatic relations with Iraq.

1987 U.S. sends its navy into the Persian Gulf, taking Iraq's side; a U.S. ship shoots down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing 290.

1988 16 March - Iraq is said to have used chemical weapons against the Kurdish town of Halabjah.

1988 20 August - A ceasefire comes into effect to be monitored by the UN Iran-Iraq Military Observer Group (UNIIMOG).

1990 August - Iraq invades Kuwait and is condemned by United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 660 which calls for full withdrawal. UNSC Resolution 661 imposes economic sanctions on Iraq until they comply with weapons inspections.

1990 8 August - Iraq announces the merger of Iraq and Kuwait.

1991 16 -17 January - The Gulf War starts when the coalition forces begin aerial bombing of Iraq ("Operation Desert Storm").

1991 13 February - US planes destroy an air raid shelter at Amiriyah in Baghdad, killing over 300 people.

1991 24 February - The start of a ground operation which results in the liberation of Kuwait on 27 February.

1991 3 March - Iraq accepts the terms of a ceasefire.

1991 Mid-March/early April - Iraqi forces suppress rebellions in the south and the north of the country.

1991 8 April - A plan for the establishment of a UN safe-haven in northern Iraq, north of latitude 36 degrees north, for the protection of the Kurds, is approved at a European Union meeting in Luxembourg. On 10 April, the USA orders Iraq to end all military activity in this area.

1992 26 August - A no-fly zone, excluding flights of Iraqi planes, is established in southern Iraq, south of latitude 32 degrees north.

1993 27 June - US forces launch a cruise missile attack on Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Al-Mansur district, Baghdad in retaliation for the attempted assassination of US President, George Bush, in Kuwait in April.

1995 14 April - UNSC Resolution 986 allows the partial resumption of Iraq's oil exports to buy food and medicine ( the "oil-for-food program"). It is not accepted by Iraq until May 1996 and is not implemented until December 1996.

1995 August - Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Gen Hussein Kamil Hasan al-Majid, Minister of Industry and Minerals, as well as Director of the Military Industrialization Organization (MIO), his brother, Saddam, and their families, leave Iraq and are granted asylum in Jordan.

1995 15 October - Saddam Hussein wins a referendum allowing him to remain president for another 7 years.

1996 20 February - Hussein Kamil Hasan al-Majid and his brother, promised a pardon by Saddam Hussein, return to Baghdad and are killed on 23 February.

1996 31 August - In response to a call for aid from the KDP, Iraqi forces launch an offensive into the northern no-fly zone and capture of Arbil.

1996 3 September - The US extends the northern limit of the southern no-fly zone to latitude 33 degrees north, just south of Baghdad.

1997 7 October — U.N. arms inspectors tell the Security Council that Iraq still refuses to disclose full details of its banned weapons programs and is imposing restrictions on the inspections.

1998 31 October - Iraq ends all forms of cooperation with the UN Special Commission to Oversee the Destruction of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (Unscom).

1998 16-19 December - After UN staff are evacuated from Baghdad, the USA and UK launch a bombing campaign, "Operation Desert Fox", to destroy Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs.

1999 17 December - UNSC Resolution 1284 creates the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (Unmovic) to replace Unscom. Iraq rejects the resolution.

2000 August - Reopening of Baghdad airport, followed by a stream of international flights organized by countries and organizations to campaign against sanctions. The flights are labeled humanitarian missions to comply with UN sanctions on commercial flights into and out of Iraq.

2000 October - Iraq resumes domestic passenger flights, the first since the 1991 Gulf War. Commercial air links re-established with Russia, Ireland and Middle East.

2000 November - Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz rejects new weapons inspection proposals.

2000 1 December - Iraq temporarily halts oil exports after the United Nations rejects its request that buyers pay a 50-cent-a-barrel surcharge into an Iraqi bank account not controlled by the UN.

2001 - Free-trade zone agreements set up with neighboring countries. Rail link with Turkey re-opened in May for first time since 1981.

2001 February - Britain, United States carry out bombing raids to try disable Iraq's air defense network. The bombings have little international support. Iraq complains about ongoing raids.

2001 February - U.S. and British aircraft attack two communications and control facilities outside Baghdad . Iraq has been actively, but unsuccessfully, trying to shoot down allied planes patrolling the no-fly zones since December 1998.

2001 July - Britain, the US fail in attempt to overhaul the UN sanctions, which they say are widely abused and lead to an unnecessary burden of suffering on civilians. They have been pushing for "smart sanctions". Russia demands an overhaul which addresses lifting the sanctions.

2001 August - World Health Organization team arrives for a survey into cancer and birth defects. Iraq alleges that cancer rates have soared in areas of the south that where bombed with weapons containing depleted Uranium during the 1991 Gulf War.

2001 September - An oil tanker smuggling Iraqi oil catches fire in the northern Gulf, the latest in a series of similar incidents.

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