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Viet Minh forces attack an isolated French military outpost in the town of Dien Bien Phu. The attempt to take the outpost lasts two months, during which time the French government agrees to peace talks in Geneva.
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Ho Chi Minh, facing failing health, is replaced by Le Duan as head of North Vietnam’s ruling communist party.
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President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Lyndon B. Johnson becomes president.
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USS Maddox is allegedly attacked by North Vietnamese patrol torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin (the attack is later disputed), leading President Johnson to call for air strikes on North Vietnamese patrol boat bases.
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Nearly 300 Americans are killed and hundreds more injured in the first large-scale battle of the war, the Battle of la Drang Valley.
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Huge Vietnam War protests occur in Washington, D.C., New York City and San Francisco.
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President Nixon signs the Paris Peace Accords, ending direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The North Vietnamese accept a cease fire. But as U.S. troops depart Vietnam, North Vietnamese military officials continue plotting to overtake South Vietnam.
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North and South Vietnam are formally unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam under hardline communist rule.
