The United States Gets Involved in Vietnam

By arunvir
  • Ho Chi Minh forms Viet Minh, a group that opposed foreign occupation

  • Japan formally surrenders to the Allies, and Vietnam declares its independence

  • French warships kill about 6,000 Vietnamese citizens

  • The Viet Minh launched a surprise attack on a large French military base at Dien Bien Phu, in the mountains of northern Vietnamese

  • Eisenhower proposes the domino theory

  • Fighting temporarily stopped in Vietnam, and it was divided along the 17th parallel

  • Eisenhower provides some 350 U.S. military advisers to train and equip other nation's soldiers

  • Kennedy sends an inspection team to South Vietnam to evaluate the situation

  • Diem is assassinated

  • President Johnson approved covert attacks on radar stations along North Vietnam's coast

  • Barry Goldwater insisted that the United States should take a more active role in the war

  • United States took over the main responsibility for fighting the war

  • Johnson sends U.S. soldiers to war at a beach near Da Nang

  • Nearly half a million Americans were serving in Vietnam