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Geneva Accords
The Geneva Conference, intended to settle outstanding issues resulting from the Korean War and the First Indochina War, was a conference involving several nations that took place in Geneva, Switzerland, from April 26 to July 20, 1954. The part of the conference on the Korean question ended without adopting any declarations or proposals, so is generally considered less relevant. -
Assassination of Diem
Ngô Đình Diệm was a Vietnamese politician. He was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam, and served as President of South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) from 1955 until he was captured and assassinated during the 1963 military coup. This caused the North Vietnamese to try and take over the South, and believe they could do it easily. -
Domino theory coined
The domino theory was the basis for the United States strategy of containment, and the reason for entering the Vietnam War. The national strategy of containment demanded the U.S. stop communist aggression into the countries of Southeast Asia. This strategy was developed from a belief in the domino theory. The domino theory stated if one new country went communist in Asia then it would begin a chain reaction that would cause several more Southeast Asian countries becoming communist. -
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
On August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing 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. This resolution became the legal basis for the Johnson and Nixon Administrations prosecution of the Vietnam War. -
Lyndon B. Johnson orders first troops to Vietnam
President Johnson sends 3,500 marines to Vietnam as what proves to be just the first American commitment of regular troops to that embattled country. This was significant because it officially started the Vietnam war. -
My Lai Massacre
The Mỹ Lai massacre was the mass murder of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by U.S. troops in Sơn Tịnh District, South Vietnam, on March 16, 1968 during the Vietnam War. Between 347 and 504 unarmed people were killed by U.S. Army soldiers from Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment and Company B, 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd Infantry Division. This enraged almost all of America as it was a horrible thing and inhumane to society. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. It was launched on January 30, 1968 by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam against the forces of the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam, the U.S. Armed Forces and their allies. It was a campaign of surprise attacks against military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam. This caused the U.S. to lose public support for the war in Vietnam. -
Nixon’s Vietnamization policy
Vietnamization was a policy of the Richard Nixon administration to end U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War through a program to "expand, equip, and train South Vietnamese forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S. combat troops". This caused the U.S. to gradually withdrawal from the war. -
Nixon sends troops into Cambodia
The Cambodian campaign was a brief series of military operations conducted in eastern Cambodia in 1970 by South Vietnam and the United States as an extension of the Vietnam War and the Cambodian Civil War. The objective of the campaign was the defeat of the approximately 40,000 troops of the People's Army of Vietnam and the Viet Cong in the eastern border regions of Cambodia. Nixon received a lot of backlash for this, because many Americans didn't agree with it. -
Hard hat riot
The Hard Hat Riot occurred on May 8, 1970, in New York City. It started around noon when around 400 construction workers and around 800 office workers attacked around 1,000 demonstrators affiliated with the student strike of 1970. The students were protesting the May 4 Kent State shootings and the Vietnam War. This caused a lot of attention by the government as well as the rest of America. -
Kent State shooting
The Kent State shootings, were the killings of four and wounding of nine other unarmed Kent State University students by the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970 in Kent, Ohio. The killings took place during a peace rally opposing the expanding involvement of the Vietnam War into neutral Cambodia by United States military forces as well as protesting the National Guard presence on campus. This enraged some Americans who were against the war, and resulted in the Hard Hat riot. -
Nixon's Christmas bombing
On December 13, peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam collapsed. Beginning on December 18, American B-52s and fighter-bombers dropped over 20,000 tons of bombs on the cities of Hanoi and Haiphong. The United States lost 15 of its giant B-52s and 11 other aircraft during the attacks. The bombings continued until December 29, at which time the North Vietnamese agreed to resume the talks. These bombings basically brought Vietnam back to the negotiating table. -
Paris Peace Accords
The Paris Peace Accords, officially titled the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam, was a peace treaty signed on January 27, 1973, to establish peace in Vietnam and end the Vietnam War. The treaty included the governments of North Vietnam,South Vietnam, and the United States, as well as the Republic of South Vietnam that represented South Vietnamese communists. This ended the Vietnam war. -
War Powers Act
The War Powers Resolution is a federal law intended to check the U.S. president's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress. The resolution was adopted in the form of a United States congressional joint resolution. It provides that the president can send the U.S. Armed Forces into action abroad only by declaration of war by Congress. This made it harder for presidents to declare war whenever and on whoever they want. -
Fall of Saigon
The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the Viet Cong on 30 April 1975. The event marked the end of the Vietnam War and the start of a transition period from the formal reunification of Vietnam into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.