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The Presidents meet
John F. Kennedy and Ngo Dinh Diem form a meeting and Kennedy pleadged extra aid to South Vietnam. The number of US military advisors increassed from 700 to 12,000. -
US shoot first
The Strategic Hamlet program initiated. -
President Diem is assassinated
President Diem is shot to death in a military coup. 15,000 US military advisors were in South Vietnam ar the time -
Vietnamese patrol boats attack Maddox
Three North Vietnamese patrol boats fire torpedoes at the USS Maddox, a destroyer in the international waters of the Tonkin Gulf, about thirty miles off the coast of North Vietnam. -
Bombing of North VIetnam starts
President Johnson authorizes Operation Rolling Thunder. Its aim is to force North Vietnam to stop supporting Vietcong guerrillas in the South. -
North Vietnamese launch Tet offensive
Vietcong surges into action in more than 100 cities and towns. Shock attacks by Vietcong are followed by waves of supporting troops. By the end of the city battles, 37,000 Vietcong troops deployed for Tet have been killed. Many more had been wounded or captured, and the fighting had created more than a half million civilian refugees. -
My Lai Massacre
The murder of between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam. Victims included men, women, children, and infants. -
Nixon begins secret bombing of Cambodia
President Nixon starts Operation Breakfast conducted without the knowledge of Congress or the American public. -
Kent State Incident
Anti-war protests grow in the US. National Guardsmen open fire on a crowd of protesters at Ohio's Kent State University, resulting in the death of four students and the wounding of eight others -
American troops leave Vietnam
A cease-fire agreement that is signed in Paris by Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho. The agreement is to go into effect on January 28. For the US the war is officially over. Of the more than 3 million Americans who have served in the war, almost 58,000 are dead, and over 1,000 are missing in action.
