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Nationalist movements emerged in Vietnam, demanding more self-governance and less French influence.
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Japan surrendered at the end of World War II in 1945, Ho Chi Minh’s forces took the capital of Hanoi and declared Vietnam to be an independent country, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
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The Geneva Accords of 1954 declared a cease-fire and divided Vietnam officially into North Vietnam (under Ho and his Communist forces) and South Vietnam (under a French-backed emperor).
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In 1962, U.S. president John F. Kennedy sent American “military advisors” to Vietnam to help train the South Vietnamese army, the ARVN, but quickly realized that the Diem regime was unsalvageable.
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The U.S. Senate approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
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3,500 United States Marines became the first American combat troops to land in South Vietnam and by 1968, over 500,000 troops were stationed there,
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August 18, 1965 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.
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This cease-fire was finally signed in January 1973, and the last U.S. military personnel left Vietnam in March 1973.
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The Paris Peace Accords were later signed on January 27, 1973 which officially ended US involvement in the Vietnam conflict.
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The War Powers Act of 1973 greatly curtailed the President's ability to commit troops to action without first obtaining Congressional approval.
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The South Vietnamese capital of Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese, who reunited the country under Communist rule as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, ending the Vietnam War.
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On January 21, 1977 American President Jimmy Carter pardoned nearly all Vietnam War draft evaders.
