On This Day: March 17th

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.

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