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Communists led by Mao Zedong had taken power in China.
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The Korean War began when Communist North Korea, with Soviet and Chinese support, invaded South Korea.
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Three years later and nearly 37,000 Americans lives later, the war ended in a stalemate.
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent military advisers to train and arm the South Vietnamese Army in its fight against the Communists.
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When President John F. Kennedy took office, he saw Vietnam as a place to prove America's anti-Communist resolve.
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By the time Kennedy was assassinated, the number of American military advisers in Vietnam had risen from fewer than 700 to 16,000, and the fighting was intensified.
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Full-scale military intervention began witht he arrival in Da Nang of the first US combat troops.
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The first mass demonstration, with 20,000 people in Washington, took place, and the protests grew in size and militancy.
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North Vietnam and the Vietcong launched the Tet Offensive, a series of attacks during Tet, the lunar New Year.
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In the fall, Johnson and Kissinger begain the process of "Vietnamization".
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The Paris Peace Accords called for an end to the fighting and for all foreign troops to be withdrawn from Vietnam,
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The end finally came when Communist forces overran the South, with Saigon falling, forcing the hurried evacuation of the remainng Americans and a fraction of the Vietnamese who wanted to get out.
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Last helicopter lifted off the roof of the American embassy in Saigon carrying evacuees to nearby US warships.
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President Bill Clinton lifted the US trade embargo.
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President Bill Clinton restored diplomatic relations