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In October of 1955 Ngo Dihn Diem defeated Bao Dai in a government-controlled referendum in October 1955, ousted the emperor, and made himself president of the Government of the Republic of Vietnam
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North Vietnam announces the formation of the National Front for the Liberation of the South, more commonly known as the National Liberation Front (NLF) or Viet Cong.
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Following a meeting between President John F. Kennedy and South Vietnam envoy Nguyen Dinh Thuan, an agreement is reached for direct training and combat supervision of Vietnamese troops by U.S. instructors.
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Diem orders bombing raids against suspected Viet Cong-controlled hamlets. The air strikes by the South Vietnamese Air Force are supported by U.S. pilots, who also conduct some of the bombings.
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LBJ's excuse to escalate US involvement in the Vietnam Civil War
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The first attack by Viet Cong against Americans in Vietnam occurs at Bien Hoa air base, 12 miles north of Saigon. A pre-dawn mortar assault kills five Americans, two South Vietnamese, and wounds nearly a hundred others. President Johnson dismisses all recommendations for a retaliatory air strike against North Vietnam.
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The Operation Rolling Thunder bombing campaign began on March 2, 1965, partly in response to a Viet Cong attack on a U.S. air base at Pleiku. Operation Rolling Thunder was systematic aerial assaults on North Vietnam.
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The first U.S. combat troops arrive in Vietnam as 3500 Marines land at China Beach to defend the American air base at Da Nang. They join 23,000 American military advisors already in Vietnam.
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On January 31, 1968, some 70,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched the Tet Offensive, a coordinated series of fierce attacks on more than 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam.
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Johnson’s new tack, laid out in a March 1968 speech, met with a positive response from Hanoi, and peace talks between the U.S. and North Vietnam opened in Paris that May.
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Anti-war protests continued to build as the conflict wore on. In 1968 and 1969, there were hundreds of anti-war marches and gatherings throughout the country. On November 15, 1969, the largest anti-war protest in American history took place in Washington, D.C., as over 250,000 Americans gathered peacefully, calling for withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam.
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President Richard Nixon declared to a television audience that the American military troops, accompanied by the South Vietnamese People's Army, were to invade Cambodia.The invasion was under the pretext of disrupting the North Vietnamese supply lines. They also invaded in order to bomb and destroy the Viet Cong base camps, that were backing up the other operations in South Vietnam.
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in December Nixon authorized a number of bombing raids against targets in Hanoi and Haiphong. The United States lost 15 of its giant B-52s and 11 other aircraft during the attacks. North Vietnam claimed that over 1,600 civilians were killed.
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The United States and North Korea concluded a final peace agreement on August 15th, 1973, ending open hostilities between the two nations.
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The war between North and South Vietnam ended on April 30, 1975, when DRV forces captured Saigon, renaming it Ho Chi Minh City.
