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Harry Truman gives funding to countries he fears are at risk of falling to communism, including Vietnam. He gives them finances, transport planes and jeeps, along with 35 military advisers. -
US along with South Vietnam does not sign Geneva accords, as they do not want Ho Chi Minh to win election and turn all of Vietnam Communist. -
Eisenhower supplied Diem with money and weapons, sending nearly $2 billion in aid from 1955 to 1960 and increasing the number of military advisors to around 1,000. -
Once in the White House, Kennedy provided South Vietnam with jet fighters, helicopters, armored personnel carriers, river patrol boats and other tools of war. He also authorized the use of napalm, as well as defoliants such as Agent Orange, for defense against it's Communist counterpart. -
With Diem assassinated and more military advisors in South Vietnam than before, Kennedy contiplates withdraw from Vietnam, but it is unclear whether he would have actually done so. -
The USS Maddox is reported to be attacked by North Vietnamese patrol boats. Johnson uses this to pass Gulf of Tonkin resolution. -
USS Turner Joy reportedly attacked by North Vietnamese patrol boats. Doubts later emerged as to whether or not the attack against the Turner Joy had taken place. -
This authorizes President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia. -
The White House authorised a series of targeted bombing runs against North Vietnam, purportedly in response to Viet Cong attacks. -
A bombing campaign against the North begins. This is to destroy things and to threaten the North Vietnamese with US military power. -
On March 8th some 3,500 Marines landed at ‘China Beach’, near Da Nang. These arrivals would continue regularly through 1965. -
The first draft lottery since 1942 began. Men are being drafted and sent to Vietnam to fight on the ground to combat the Viet Cong in the South.