The Vietnam War

  • Creation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam

    Creation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
    In August 1945, President Ho Chi Minh successfully launched an uprising to seize power and the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam came into being on 2 September 1945. Vietnamese revolutionary leader Hồ Chí Minh declared independence from French Indochina on 2 September 1945 and announced the creation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. They split to two.
  • Creation of the 17th parallel between North and South Vietnam

    Creation of the 17th parallel between North and South Vietnam
    Seventeenth parallel, the provisional military demarcation line established in Vietnam by the Geneva Accords (1954). The line did not actually coincide with the 17th parallel but ran south of it, approximately along the Ben Hai River to the village of Bo Ho Su and from there due west to the Laos-Vietnam border.
  • Battle of Dien Bien Phu

    Battle of Dien Bien Phu
    It was a climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War that took place between 13 March and 7 May 1954. It was fought between the French Union's colonial Far East Expeditionary Corps and Viet Minh communist revolutionaries. The United States was officially not a party to the war, but it was secretly involved by providing financial and material aid to the French Union, which included CIA contracted American personnel participating in the battle.
  • My Lai Massacre

    My Lai Massacre
    The Mỹ Lai massacre (/ˌmiːˈlaɪ/; Vietnamese: Thảm sát Mỹ Lai [tʰâːm ʂǎːt mǐˀ lāːj] (listen)) was the mass murder of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by United States troops in Sơn Tịnh District, South Vietnam, on 16 March 1968 during the Vietnam War. Between 347 and 504 unarmed people were killed by U.S. Army soldiers from Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment and Company B, 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd (Americal) Infantry Division.
  • Gulf of Tonkin Incident and Resolution

    Gulf of Tonkin Incident and Resolution
    Gulf of Tonkin incident, complex naval event in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of Vietnam, that was presented to the U.S. Congress on August 5, 1964, as two unprovoked attacks by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on the destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy of the U.S. Seventh Fleet and that led to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which allowed President Lyndon B. Johnson to greatly escalate U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War.
  • Establishment of the National Liberation Front

    Establishment of the National Liberation Front
    The NLF reached out to those parts of South Vietnamese society who were displeased with the government and policies of President Ngo Dinh Diem. One hundred delegates representing more than a dozen political parties and religious groups–both communists and non-communists–were in attendance at the conference. However, from the beginning, the NLF was dominated by the Lao Dong Party Central Committee.
  • Operation Rolling Thunder

    Operation Rolling Thunder
    Operation Rolling Thunder. Compilation of United States Air Force and United States Naval air operations throughout the Rolling Thunder campaign. Operation Rolling Thunder was a gradual and sustained aerial bombardment campaign conducted by the United States (U.S.) 2nd Air Division (later Seventh Air Force ), U.S. Navy, and Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) from 2 March 1965 until 2 November 1968, during the Vietnam War.
  • US combat troops arrive in Vietnam

    US combat troops arrive in Vietnam
    Under the authority of President Lyndon B. Johnson, the United States first deployed troops to Vietnam in 1965 in response to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident of August 2 and 4, 1964. On March 8, 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines landed near Da Nang in South Vietnam, thereby escalating the Vietnam Conflict and marking the United States' first action of the subsequent Vietnam War.
  • 1968 Presidential Election

    1968 Presidential Election
    The 1968 United States presidential election was the 46th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1968. The Republican nominee, former vice president Richard Nixon, defeated both the Democratic nominee, incumbent vice president Hubert Humphrey, and the American Independent Party nominee, former Alabama governor George Wallace.
  • Tet Offensive

    Tet Offensive
    The Tet Offensive[13] was a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. It was launched on January 30, 1968 by forces of the Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) against the forces of the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), the United States Armed Forces and their allies.
  • 1968 Democratic National Convention

    1968 Democratic National Convention
    The 1968 Democratic National Convention was held August 26–29 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Earlier that year incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson had announced he would not seek reelection, thus making the purpose of the convention to select a new presidential nominee for the Democratic Party.
  • Kent State University Protest

    Kent State University Protest
    Four Kent State University students were killed and nine were injured on May 4, 1970, when members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a crowd gathered to protest the Vietnam War. The tragedy was a watershed moment for a nation divided by the conflict in Southeast Asia. In its immediate aftermath, a student-led strike forced the temporary closure of colleges and universities across the country.