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The French knew that the U.S. wanted their assistance in Europe with the emerging Cold War against the Soviets. So since they were cooperating with the U.S. in Europe, they wanted U.S. cooperation in regaining their former colony in Southeast Asia.
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Vietnam was divided into northern and southern sections. North Vietnam is set up as a communist state under Ho Chi Minh's rule. South Vietnam is set up as an anti-communist state.
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As the school year was about to begin in Little Rock Arkansas, the Govenor at the time threated to call out National Guard troops in Arkansas to physically block Black students from entering the school, which ended up being a bluff. There was a large and angry crowd of White segregationists outside the school that tried to prevent nine African American teenagers from going to school by throwing things at them. President Eisenhower sent active troops to guard the teens as they attended school.
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Because the South Vietnamese government and military are so weak, U.S. officials sent more money and more military advisors into Southeast Asia.
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Thousands of people who supported equality, gathered together in the nations capitol to hear speeches and to celebrate the cause of racial equality.
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Jack Kennedy was assassinated. Kennedy made it clear that he supported the ‘Domino Theory.’ He was convinced that if South Vietnam fell to communism, then other states in the region would also fall as a consequence.
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Lyndon Johnson became the 36th President after Kennedy's assassination. He expanded the idea of an American welfare state and ended widespread disenfranchisement of Blacks.
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A U.S. warship was patrolling in the Gulf of Tonkin because it was supporting a South Vietnamese attack on North Vietnam. The north shot at the warship and it got away safely. It returned again and reported that there were North Vietnamese torpedoes in the water. When jets arrived to check on the report, no torpedoes were found. President Johnson then goes before the public and says that the U.S. was attacked by North Vietnam and asks Congress for a major escalation of U.S. forces.
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The war that was usually fought out in the countryside, was brought into the cities of South Vietnam. North Vietnamese military units came out and over a period of a few weeks, they captured almost all of South Vietnam's urban areas. The U.S. Embassy in Saigon was briefly taken over as well.
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As the Tet Offensive's enormity was revealed to Johnson, he makes the decision to drop out of the presidential campaign. He knows that he may very well not win the re-election and he wants to devote more of his time and energy trying to figure out a solution to the war.
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For Americans that were still trying to believe that the system could work without having to get militant or radical to see change, they lost their most effective spokesperson and symbol for hope.
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A Senator from New York jumped into the presidential race. He suggested to African Americans that if they were upset over the loss of MLK Jr, and liked his reform messages, that they needed to back his presidential campaign. He really connected with the poor and with minorities and his presidential campaign began to really take off, when he was gunned down outside a hotel.
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Women discovered through fighting for civil rights that many of their male allies in fighting for racial equality, were quite sexist when it came to gender roles and issues.
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The Congress that was in session ended up resending the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, but by then it was too late.
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This is the single greatest political scandal in U.S. history. There was a break-in at the Watergate apartment complex that included the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. Well dressed men were taken into custody for the burglary with electronic equipment. It turns out that the Watergate burglary was just one component of a much broader campiagn by members of Nixon's Whitehouse staff. This led to his resignation.
