Vietnamese communist forces , or viet minh , defeated the french coloinal army at the battle of Dien Bien Phu
south vietnamese was astabolished
some signers of geneva accords hope that elections to unify the two republics could be schedueled
There had been a small movement of opposition to the war within certain quarters of the United States
The U.S. Senate then approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
3,500 United States Marines became the first American combat troops to land in South Vietnam
our F-4C Phantoms escorting a bombing raid at Kang Chi became the targets of antiaircraft missiles in the first such attack against American planes in the war.
Operation Starlite began as the first major American ground battle of the war when 5,500 US Marines destroyed a Viet Cong stronghold on the Van Tuong peninsula in Quang Ngai Province.
the House Un-American Activities Committee began investigations of Americans who were suspected of aiding the Viet Cong, with the intent to introduce legislation making these activities illegal.
a suspected Viet Cong officer was summarily executed by Nguyen Ngoc Loan, a South Vietnamese National Police Chief.
over 500,000 troops were stationed there, and the toll of American soldiers killed, as reported every Thursday on the evening news, was over 100 a week.
