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Ho Chi Minh facing failing health, is replaced by Le Duan as head of North Vietnam’s communist party.
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John F. Kennedy sends helicopters and 400 Green Berets to South Vietnam to get secrets from viet cong
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Ngo Dinh Diem survives a bombing on the presidential palace.
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The United States backs a South Vietnam military coup against the unpopular Diem, which ends in the brutal killing of Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu
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USS Maddox is allegedly attacked by North Vietnamese patrol torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin
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President Johnson launches a three-year campaign of sustained bombing of targets in North Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Operation Rolling Thunder
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General Nguen Van Thieu of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Governmental Military becomes president of South Vietnam.
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U.S. troop numbers in Vietnam rise to 400,000.
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U.S. troop numbers stationed in Vietnam increase to 500,000.
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U.S. aircraft bomb Haiphong Harbor and North Vietnamese airfields.
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Battles at Hue and Saigon end with American and ARVN victory as Viet Cong guerillas are cleared from the cities.
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This week records the highest number of U.S. soldier deaths during the war, with 543 American deaths.
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President Johnson halts bombing in Vietnam north of the 20th parallel. Facing backlash about the war, Johnson announces he will not run for reelection.
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Republican Richard M. Nixon wins the U.S. presidential elections on the campaign promises to restore “law and order” and to end the draft.
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Ho Chi Minh dies of a heart attack in Hanoi