Timeline: Gulf War 1990-1991

A quarter of a century ago, nearly 100,000 Iraqi troops and 700 tanks drove into Kuwait at 2 a.m. local time.

Within two days of intense combat between the two countries, most of the Kuwaiti armed forces were either overrun by the Iraq’s Republican Guard or were forced to fall back to neighboring Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

The former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein accused the Kuwaitis of suppressing the price of oil by producing more than they were declaring, which in turn hurt the oil-dependent Iraqi economy.

The invasion would eventually lead to a coalition of forces led by the U.S. The Americans, under the name Operation Desert Shield, set up a massive base in Saudi Arabia from which they would later launched air strikes.

American warships in the Arabian Gulf would also launch cruise missiles at Iraqi targets.