Historical timeline for March 17

Rojava conflict: At a conference in Rmelan, the Movement for a Democratic Society declares the establishment of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria.

Unrest in Kosovo: More than 22 are killed and 200 wounded. Thirty-five Serbian Orthodox shrines in Kosovo and two mosques in Serbia are destroyed.

Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council, Robin Cook, resigns from the British Cabinet in disagreement with government plans for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Five hundred and thirty members of the Ugandan cult Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God die in a fire, considered to be a mass murder or suicide orchestrated by leaders of the cult. Elsewhere another 248 members are later found dead.

Israeli Embassy attack in Buenos Aires: Car bomb attack kills 29 and injures 242.

A referendum to end apartheid in South Africa is passed 68.7% to 31.2%.

A Colombian Boeing 727 jetliner, Avianca Flight 410, crashes into a mountainside near the Venezuelan border killing 143.

Eritrean War of Independence: The Nadew Command, an Ethiopian army corps in Eritrea, is attacked on three sides by military units of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front in the opening action of the Battle of Afabet.

Serial killer Richard Ramirez, aka the "Night Stalker", commits the first two murders in his Los Angeles murder spree.

Aeroflot Flight 1691 crashes on approach to Vnukovo International Airport, killing 58.

The Penmanshiel Tunnel collapses during engineering works, killing two workers.

The Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph Burst of Joy is taken, depicting a former prisoner of war being reunited with his family, which came to symbolize the end of United States involvement in the Vietnam War.

Golda Meir becomes the first female Prime Minister of Israel.

As a result of nerve gas testing by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps in Skull Valley, Utah, over 6,000 sheep are found dead.

Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the DSV Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb.

Mount Agung erupts on Bali killing more than 1,100 people.

A Clockwork Orange, a British dystopian novel by Anthony Burgess, is published.

Northwest Airlines Flight 710 explodes and crashes near Cannelton, Indiana, killing 63.

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the National Security Council directive on the anti-Cuban covert action program that will ultimately lead to the Bay of Pigs Invasion.

The United States launches the first solar-powered satellite, which is also the first satellite to achieve a long-term orbit.