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The Vietminh fight off the French and push them out of Vietnam. The Vietminh overran the French outpost at Dien Bien Phu.
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France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, the United States, China, Laos, and Cambodia met in Geneva, Switzerland with the Vietminh and south vietnams anticomunist nationalists to create a peace agreement. Vietnam was split at the 17th parallel, the north being communist controlled by Ho Chi Minh and the south controlled by anti communists.
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Diem was corrupt and very unpopular with the Soutern Vietnamese people. The U.S. thought that diem needed to go. His regime was destroyed and Diem was killed by a U.S. supported military coup.
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North Vietnamese patrol boat fired a torpedo at an American destroyer. This later haponeed again so president Johnson ask congress to have power to "take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression".
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About 500,000 U.S. troops were in vietnam.
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This was a surprise attack by the Vietcong on over 100 towns and 12 U.S. air bases. The Vietcong lost 32,000 soldiers to this month long battle and the ARVN and American forces only lost 3,000.
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U.S. platoon massacred innocent civilians in the small village of my lai. They were looking for Vietcong and found none, they then rounded up the villagers and open fired.
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The U.S. troops had lots of trouble trying to fight in the jungles with untraditional fighting styles. They had to use napalm and agent orange to get rid of vegetation
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Nixon ran on. The promise of restoring law and order and promised vaguely to end war in Vietnam. His running mate George Wallace helped greatly because of the influence he had in the south.
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Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger created a plan called Vietnamization. It called for a gradual withdrawal of troops in order to makes south Vietnamese have a more active role.
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The last troops return from Vietnam. The war had ended for Amercia in Vietnam.
