March 2003

Saturday 01:

Management of the United States Customs Service and the United States Secret Service move to the United States Department of Homeland Security.

Sunday 02:

2003 The first International Symposium on Taiwan Sign Language Linguistics is held at Chung Cheng University.

Tuesday 04:

Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn redebuts on Comedy Central

Wednesday 05:

Nature withdraws several papers as a result of the Jan Hendrik Schön scandal.

Tuesday 11:

The International Criminal Court is founded in The Hague.

Wednesday 12:

Zoran ?in?i?, Prime Minister of Serbia, assassinated in Belgrade.

Thursday 13:

Human evolution: The journal Nature reports that 350,000-year-old upright-walking human footprints have been found in Italy.

Sunday 16:

Largest coordinated worldwide vigil, as part of the global protests against war on Iraq.

Monday 17:

British Cabinet Minister, Robin Cook, resigns over government plans for war with Iraq.

Wednesday 19:

The invasion of Iraq begins (with the time difference, it actually begins on March 20 at 0100 UTC)

Thursday 20:

2003 – 2003 invasion of Iraq: In the early hours of the morning, the United States and three other countries begin military operations in Iraq.

Sunday 23:

In Nasiriyah, Iraq, 18 U.S. Marines are killed during the first major conflict of Operation Iraqi Freedom

Monday 24:

The Arab League votes 21-1 in favor of a resolution demanding the immediate and unconditional removal of US and British soldiers from Iraq.

Wednesday 26:

The Supreme Court of the United States hears oral arguments in Lawrence v. Texas.

Thursday 27:

An explosion in the Nitrochimie dynamite factory in Billy-Berclau, France kills 4 people.

Sunday 30:

Under cover of darkness, Mayor Richard M. Daley destroys Meigs Field, a general aviation airport in downtown Chicago, Illinois, without giving the required notice to the FAA.