1988: March

March 6 - Students at Gallaudet University go on strike for the selection of a non-deaf university president.
March 7 - Operation Flavius: The Special Air Service fatally shoot three unarmed Irish Republican Army members in Gibraltar.
March 8 - Two U.S. Army helicopters collide in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, killing 17 servicemen.
March 8 - U.S. presidential candidate George Herbert Walker Bush defeats Robert Dole in numerous Republican primaries and caucuses on "Super Tuesday". The bipartisan primary/caucus calendar, designed by Democrats to help solidify their own nominee early, backfires when none of the 6 competing candidates are able to break out of the pack in the day's Democratic contests. Jesse Jackson, however, wins several Southern state primaries.
March 16 - The Halabja poison gas attack is carried out by Iraqi government forces.
March 16 - Iran-Contra Affair: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
March 17 - A Colombian Boeing 727 jetliner, Avianca Flight 410, crashes into the side of the mountains near the Venezuelan border killing 143.
March 17 - 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 (EPLF) in the opening action of the Battle of Afabet.
March 19 - British Army Corporals Woods and Howes are killed by the IRA in the so-called "Corporals killings".
March 20 - Eritrean War of Independence: Having defeated the Nadew Command, the EPLF enters the town of Afabet, victoriously concluding the Battle of Afabet.
March 24 - An Israeli court sentences Mordechai Vanunu to 18 years in prison for disclosing Israel's nuclear program to The Sunday Times.
March 25 - The Candle Demonstration in Bratislava, Slovakia is the first mass demonstration of the 1980s against the communist regime in Czechoslovakia.
March 26 - U.S. presidential candidate Jesse Jackson defeats Michael Dukakis in the Michigan Democratic caucuses, becoming the temporary front-runner for the party's nomination. Richard Gephardt withdraws his candidacy after his campaign speeches against imported automobiles fail to earn him much support in Detroit.
March 29 - African National Congress representative Dulcie September is assassinated in Paris.