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Draft begins
In November 1942, with the United States now a participant in the war, and not merely a neutral bystander, the draft ages expanded; men 18 to 37 were now eligible. Blacks were passed over for the draft because of racist assumptions about their abilities and the viability of a mixed-race military. But this changed in 1943, when a “quota” was imposed, meant to limit the numbers of blacks drafted to reflect their numbers in the overall population, roughly 10.6 percent of the whole. Initially, black -
Advisers sent to Vietnam
The U.S. military advisory effort in Vietnam had a modest beginning in September 1950, when the United States Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG), Vietnam, was established in Saigon. Its mission was to supervise the issuance and employment of $10 million of military equipment to support French legionnaires in their effort to combat Viet Minh forces. -
Assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem
President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother are captured and killed by a group of soldiers. The death of Diem caused celebration among many people in South Vietnam, but also lead to political chaos in the nation. The United States subsequently became more heavily involved in Vietnam as it tried to stabilize the South Vietnamese government and beat back the communist rebels that were becoming an increasingly powerful threat. -
Operation Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder was the title of a gradual and sustained US 2nd Air Division (later Seventh Air Force), US Navy, and Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF) aerial bombardment campaign conducted against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) from 2 March 1965 until 2 November 1968, during the Vietnam War. -
Pentagon Papers
The Pentagon Papers was the name given to a secret Department of Defense study of U.S. political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967, prepared at the request of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1967. -
Johnson announces US involvement in War
In late January, 1968, during the lunar new year (or “Tet”) holiday, North Vietnamese and communist Viet Cong forces launched a coordinated attack against a number of targets in South Vietnam. The U.S. and South Vietnamese militaries sustained heavy losses before finally repelling the communist assault. The Tet Offensive played an important role in weakening U.S. public support for the war in Vietnam. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive (Vietnamese: Sự kiện Tết Mậu Thân 1968, or Tổng tiến công và nổi dậy Tết Mậu Thân) was one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War, launched on January 30, 1968 by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam against the forces of South Vietnam, the United States, and their allies. It was a campaign of surprise attacks against military and civilian commands and control centers throughout South Vietnam.[10] -
My Lai Massacre
The massacre, which was later called "the most shocking episode of the Vietnam War",[4] took place in two hamlets of Sơn Mỹ village in Quảng Ngãi Province.[5] These hamlets were marked on the U.S. Army topographic maps as My Lai and My Khe.[6] The U.S. military codeword for the alleged Viet Cong stronghold in that area was Pinkville,[7] and the carnage was initially referred to as the Pinkville Massacre.[8][9] Later, when the U.S. Army started its investigation, the media changed it to the Massa -
Johnson announces he will not seek or accept presidential nomination
Lyndon Baines Johnson announced tonight: "I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party as your President." Later, at a White House news conference, he said his decision was "completely irrevocable." The President told his nationwide television audience. "What we have won when all our people were united must not be lost in partisanship. I have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency to become involved in partisan decisions -
MLK assassination
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American clergyman and civil rights leader who was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on Thursday, April 4, 1968, at the age of 39. King was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:05 pm that evening. He was a prominent leader of the African-American civil rights movement and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was known for his use of civil disobedience and non-violence -
Vietnamization
Vietnamization was a policy of the Richard Nixon administration during the Vietnam War to end U.S. involvement in the war and "expand, equip, and train South Vietnam's forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S. combat troops -
RFK assassination
The assassination of Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy, a United States Senator and brother of assassinated President John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy, took place shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, in Los Angeles, California, during the campaign season for the United States Presidential election, 1968. After winning the California and South Dakota primary elections for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States, Kennedy was shot as he walked through the kitchen of the Ambassado -
Democratic Convention
The 1968 Democratic National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party was held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, from August 26 to August 29, 1968. Because President Lyndon B. Johnson had announced he would not seek reelection, the purpose of the convention was to select a new presidential nominee to run as the Democratic Party's candidate for the office.[1] The keynote speaker was Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) -
Nixon Wins Presidency
Eight years after being defeated by John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election, Richard Nixon defeats Hubert H. Humphrey and is elected president. Two years after losing to Kennedy, Nixon ran for governor of California and lost in a bitter campaign against Edmund G. (“Pat”) Brown. Most political observers believed that Nixon’s political career was over, but by February 1968, he had sufficiently recovered his political standing in the Republican Party to announce his candidacy for president. Taking a -
Kent State Shooting
The Kent State shootings (also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre)[1][2][3] occurred at Kent State University in the US city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.[4][5] Some of the students who were shot had been protesting the Cambodian Campaign, -
Repeal of Tonkin Gulf
On an amendment offered by Senator Robert Dole (R-Kansas) to the Foreign Military Sales Act, the Senate votes 81 to 10 to repeal the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. In August 1964, after North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked U.S. destroyers (in what became known as the Tonkin Gulf incident), President Johnson asked Congress for a resolution authorizing the president “to take all necessary measures” to defend Southeast Asia. Subsequently, Congress passed Public Law 88-408, which became known as the Ton -
Invasion of Cambodia
The Cambodian Campaign (also known as the Cambodian Incursion and the Cambodian Invasion) was a series of military operations conducted in eastern Cambodia during mid-1970 by the United States and the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) during the Vietnam War. These invasions were a result of the policy of President Richard Nixon. A total of 13 major operations were conducted by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) between 29 April and 22 July and by US forces between 1 May and 30 June. -
Watergate
The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal that occurred in the United States in the 1970s as a result of the June 17, 1972, break-in at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its ... -
US cease fire in Vietnam
When the cease-fire went into effect, Saigon controlled about 75 percent of South Vietnam’s territory and 85 percent of the population. The South Vietnamese Army was well equipped via last-minute deliveries of U.S. weapons and continued to receive U.S. aid after the cease-fire. The CIA estimated North Vietnamese presence in the South at 145,000 men, about the same as the previous year. The cease-fire began on time, but both sides violated it. South Vietnamese forces continued to take back villag -
Nixon Resignation
Richard Milhous Nixon announced last night that he will resign as the 37th President of the United States at noon today. Vice President Gerald R. Ford of Michigan will take the oath as the new President at noon to complete the remaining 2 1/2 years of Mr. Nixon's term. After two years of bitter public debate over the Watergate scandals, President Nixon bowed to pressures from the public and leaders of his party to become the first President in American history to resign. -
Fall of Saigon
The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People’s Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (also known as the Việt Cộng) on April 30, 1975. The event marked the end of the Vietnam War and the start of a transition period to the formal reunification of Vietnam into a socialist republic, governed by the Communist Party of Vietnam.
