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The Hawks
The War Hawks were a group of Republican Congressmen who at the end of the first decade of the 1800s, demanded that the United States declare war against Great Britain, invade British Canada, and expel the Spanish from Florida. -
The Doves
The ones who didn't want war. They thought that the United States should do what ever is necessary to win. Doves think that the problem in Vietnam is a civil war. -
Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh founds the Indochinese Communist Party. first emerged as an outspoken voice for Vietnamese independence while living as a young man in France during World War I. Inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution, he joined the Communist Party and traveled to the Soviet Union. -
President Ngo Dinh Diem
Vietnamese political leader who served as president, with dictatorial powers, of what was then South Vietnam, from 1955 until his assassination. Diem refused to carry out the Geneva Accords, which had called for free elections to be held. -
Selective Service Act
Congress passed the Selective Service Act, which Wilson signed into law on May 18, 1917. The act required all men in the U.S. between the ages of 21 and 30 to register for military service. -
Domino Theory
The Cold War “containment" notion was born of the Domino Theory, which held that if one country fell under communist influence or control, its countries around it would soon follow. Containment was the main point of the Truman Doctrine as defined by a Truman speech. -
Geneva
Geneva Accords of 1954 resulted from a conference in Geneva, Switzerland, that focused primarily on resolving the war between French forces and those of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, led by the nationalist-communist Ho Chi Minh. -
Dien Bien Phu
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu was the decisive engagement in the first Indochina War. After French forces took over the Dien Bien Phu valley in late 1953, Viet Minh commander Vo Nguyen Giap amassed troops and placed heavy artillery in caves of the mountains overlooking the French camp. -
Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main representations of the New Left. -
Credibility gap
an apparent difference between what is said or promised and what happens or is true.At the time, it was most frequently used to describe public skepticism about the Lyndon B. Johnson administration's statements and policies on the Vietnam War. -
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas. -
Torpedo launch
Torpedo boats fired on the American destroyer USS Maddox. The American ship had been cruising around the Tonkin Gulf monitoring radio and radar signals following an attack by South Vietnamese PT boats -
Living room war
A living room war is a term that refers to the reporting of a war on television and other media, and how that reporting shapes public perception of that war. -
Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder was the title of a gradual and sustained aerial bombardment campaign conducted by the U.S. 2nd Air Division. -
Ho Chi Minh trail
Ho Chi Minh Trail, an elaborate system of mountain and jungle paths and trails used by North Vietnam to allow troops and supplies into South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos during the Vietnam War. -
U.S. involvement in Vietnam
The U.S. government viewed its involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam. This was part of the domino theory for a bigger containment policy, with the goal of stopping the spread of communism. -
Danger on the Battlefield
Vietcong and North Vietnamese were both difficult places for a war due to they avoided significant engagements. They fought in smaller Skirmishes where their small-unit abilities and known knowledge. The US often had no alternative but to fight inclusive battles. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive, or officially called The General Offensive and Uprising of Tet Mau Than 1968 by North Vietnam and the NLF, was one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. -
Village of My Lai
Vietnamese women and children in Mỹ Lai before being killed in the massacre. Women were sexually assaulted before being shot and killed. -
Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr
Martin Luther King Jr. is fatally shot while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. -
Chicago Democratic Convention
Tens of thousands of Vietnam War protesters had battled police in the streets, while the Democratic Party falls apart over an internal disagreement concerning its stance on Vietnam. -
Vietnamization
Vietnamization was a policy of the Richard Nixon administration to end U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War through a program to "expand, equip, and train." -
Kent State University Protest
Four Kent State University students were killed and nine injured when members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire during a demonstration protesting the Vietnam War. -
Pentagon Papers
The Pentagon Papers, or the Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force, is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political and military involvement in Vietnam. -
War Powers Act
The War Powers Resolution is a federal law intended to check the president's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress.
