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Ho Chi Minh is Born
Ho Chi Minh was a Communist leader of South Vietnam and spent his time trying to get the nation of Vietnam free from the French colonial leaders. He tried to keep his freedom terms in a peaceful way. Ho Chi Minh tried to unify his home country through peaceful terms even when his militant follows the Viet Cong, tried to call for an aggressive war. -
Vietnam Declares Independence from France, US nor France recognize it as a nation.
Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi's Ba Dinh square. The first lines of his speech repeated verbatim the famous second paragraph of America's 1776 Declaration of Independence. All men are created equal. In response, the Viet Minh launched an attack against the French in Hanoi on them which was the beginning of the First Indochina War. -
The Viet Minh and Ho Chi Minh defeat the French at Dien Bien Phu
The French are defeated at the battle of Dien Bien Phu and are forced to surrender. President Eisenhower vetoed a proposal to get involved in another land war in Asia so soon after the Korean War. -
Pres. Eisenhower Declares "Domino Theory"
The Domino Theory was declared by President Eisenhower and was the theory that if one nation fell to communism the surrounding nations would fall to the same governmental power. It became a big problem in Vietnam with the worry that the nations near and around Vietnam would fall to communism. -
Geneva Accords Cause the Split of North and South
The Geneva Accords focused primarily on resolving the war between French forces and those of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), led by the nationalist-communist Ho Chi Minh. Vietnam was then separated by the 17th parallel -
ngo Dinh Diem Cancels Elections in Vitenam
Cancels due to Ho Chi Minh's popularity. The elections were for the vote on the ruler of the new Vietnam nation. A North Vietnamese communist group called the Vietcong started to assassinate thousands of the South Vietnamese governmental officials. This lead to the cancel of the 17th parallel. -
The National Liberation Front is Formed
This was the South Vietnamese side and was also called Viet Cong during the war. They mostly occupied the South end of Vietnam. -
A South Vietnamese Sets Himself on Fire
Thich Quang Duc was an elderly old man who was a Buddhist monk and set himself on fire. It was an act of protest over discrimination towards Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government. -
The United States Withdraws support of Ngo Dinh Diem, Leader of the South Vitenamese
The Us stopped their support because Diem would refuse to make any meaningful concessions or institute any significant new reforms and U.S. support was withdrawn. After Diem lost his support from the US, he was captured along with his brother, they were killed in Vietnam. -
President Kennedy Assassinated, Lyndon B. Johnson Becomes President
When Kennedy died Lyndon B. Johnson became president. It shocked the nation to have a president die on tv like that and many people have questioned his death over many things. Some wonder what would have happened if Kennedy had lived to which some say that the Vietnam War would've ended differently with a different diplomatic solution. -
President Johnson claims a U.S. ship had been fired upon by the North Vietnamese
A claim the U.S. Maddox was shot at by North Vietnamese which started a threat that the Vietnamese were firing at U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. A response to this problem was to give the president more power to have control on whether or not America dropped our troops in Vietnam. The bill was Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. -
The First Combat Troops Arrive in Vietnam
The U.S. went into Vietnam in the 1960s. In September 1950, US President Harry Truman sent the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) to Vietnam to assist the French in the First Indochina War. In May 1961, JFK authorized sending military advisors to assist the pro-Western government of South Vietnam. By the end of 1962, there were approximately 11,000 military advisors in South Vietnam; that year, 53 military personnel had been killed.
