By nightfall, President Saddam Hussein's regime was as smashed as the black statue of the fallen dictator in Ferdoos Square, symbolically wrenched off its plinth by a US armoured personnel carrier and hundreds of Baghdadis.
All trace of Iraqi government authority in the capital vanished. There were few signs of resistance, though some explosions were heard in the evening.
The occupation of most of Baghdad by US troops was met with a strange mixture of joy and terror, as poor Shiite Muslims from the slums of Saddam City swarmed into the city centre to help themselves to the contents of shops and government buildings.
With US forces saying they had no instructions to prevent pillage, residents of central Baghdad organised themselves into armed vigilante committees to protect their property, and that of neighbours who had fled the bombing.
Though tens of thousands of Baghdadis turned out to greet the Americans in the streets, the "liberation" of the capital was tainted by doubts that Saddam had really fallen, and especially fear of anarchy in the city.
The mobs that tore and burned his omnipresent portraits did so more in vengeance than celebration.
A seemingly endless column of US tanks, armoured personnel carriers and humvee jeeps drove northwest on Sa'adoun Street, arriving at Ferdoos Square by late afternoon.
The Marines of 1st Tank Bravo Company said they encountered no resistance in their day-long journey from south of Baghdad, but their tank turrets swept constantly from side to side, and in the back of each APC a dozen Marines were staggered, facing opposite directions with their M-16 assault rifles poised.
Many of the men, women and children who lined the pavements waved and flashed V for victory signs. Happy families, eager to set eyes on their liberators, drove towards the invasion force, waving white flags.
But there were tragic errors.
I saw a civilian car, waving a white flag, with a wounded person lying across the back seat and blood dripping onto the street, timidly attempt to approach the armoured column, then turn back in fear.
French colleagues from Libération and Le Parisien saw an old Iraqi man driving a blue car, with his wife in the passenger seat, shot in the head because he drove too close to US troops.
At the same time, the last Iraqi military and intelligence officials to leave could be seen loading their cars with personal belongings.
The type of goods in a car - bedding and suitcases, or appliances and office furniture - was the best indication whether motorists were fleeing remnants of the regime or looters.
The Americans placed tanks and armoured vehicles, some flying the stars and stripes from their antennae, at each corner of the Palestine Hotel, one day after a US tank from a different unit had fired a shell that killed two cameramen. I picked up a taxi further down Sa'adoun Street, in what is now no-man's land.
An Iraqi gunman fired a volley as we sped round towards the ministries of industry and education, where whole families were looting computers, photocopiers, desks, and electric fans.
One boy's arms overflowed with telephones. Two women in chadors pushed a trolley towards the ministry, and a horse-drawn cart pulled up to take its share of the plunder.
I tried to walk into the building, but men shouted at me to turn back, making a shooting gesture and threatening to kill me, then claiming the Americans had given them permission to take what they wanted.
A few blocks away, back in Sa'adoun Street, Majid Hamid and Hamid Sultani, friends from the neighbouring Jadriya district, followed the American column on rickety bicycles.
They'd seen a mob take over United Nations offices.
"We're protecting the houses of our neighbours who left," Mr Hamid said. "We have Kalashnikovs and we won't let looters in our street."
The cyclists, a mechanical engineering student and a spare car parts dealer, sent their families to Jordan and the UAE before the war started.
"We think America loves peace," Mr Hamid said. Mr Sultani agreed, adding that "Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden give Islam a bad image."
As terrified employees stood by, a mob stormed into the lobby of the Palestine Hotel, minutes before the US APC gave the final tug to the Saddam statue outside.
The rough-looking men from the Shiite suburbs cried "Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar", then smashed, tore or burned every portrait of Saddam they could lay their hands on.
A young woman wearing an Islamic headscarf retreated into a coffee shop, clutching her baby and weeping.