Vietnam War

By Kellytubby
  • Jan 1, 1428

    Imperial Encounter: Chinese Occupation

    Vietnam won independence and Le Loi, the Vietnamese military leader, became the new emperor after the rebels drove the Chinese out of Vietnam.

  • Imperial Encounter: French Colonization

    France took control over Vietnam and formed French Indochina (one of its richest colonial possessions) by combining Vietnam with Laos and Cambodia.

  • Imperial Encounter: Japanese Army

    Southeast Asia was threatened after the Japanese army occupied Indochina.

  • Imperial Encounter: Dicussion with American Journalist

    Ho Chi Minh, a nationalist, discussed to an American journalist about the Vietnamese people’s determination to succeed in the war against French.

  • Alliance: Vietminh and China

    Vietminh, the League for the Independence of Vietnam from France, was aided by China’s communist government. China hoped to limit U.S. influence in the region and wished to prevent the establishment of a strong, unified Vietnam.

  • Battle: Dien Bien Phu

    Vietminh defeated the French and forced their surrender.

  • Diplomacy: Indochina Conflict Conference

    An international conference was held in Geneva, Switzerland to settle the Indochina conflict.

  • Event: 17th Parallel

    After the French regained of the region south of the 17th parallel, general elections to reunify the country were scheduled.

  • Alliance: Assisting Vietminh

    Armed revolution had erupted in the south and military from the north came to the south to assist the Vietminh.

  • Homefront: Diem's Brutal Campaign

    Southern Vietnamese Buddhist leaders opposed Diem’s rule (the president of the newly established Republic of Vietnam), and Diem waged a brutal campaign to control the Buddhists. Many Buddhists were arrested and killed, and Buddhist monks publicly set themselves on fire.

  • Event: Diem's Assassination

    Diem and his brother were murdered by plotters, which upset U.S. advisers who had been prepared to fly Diem out of the country.

  • Event: President Lyndon B. Johnson's Announcement

    President Lyndon B. Johnson appeared on national television to announce a new stage in U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam.

  • Tactic: Tonkin Gulf Resolution

    The Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution to give President Johnson the authority to take “all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against forces of the United States.” President Johnson also launched Operation Rolling Thunder, a bombing campaign against military targets in the North, and the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam grew from 185,000 to about 486,000.

  • Trend: Selective Service

    The Selective service notified 13,700 draftees to serve in the armed forces.

  • Homefront: Students for A Democratic Society Movement

    The Students for a Democratic Society movement organized the first national antiwar demonstration in Washington D.C., and the participants delivered to Congress a petition demanding that lawmakers “act immediately to end the war.”

  • Battle: Tet Offensive

    Vietcong guerillas and North Vietnamese troops snuck out from their jungle camps and city hideouts to execute a planned strike against the South Vietnamese and their U.S. allies.

  • Two Tactics: Fighting the Enemy and Befriending Local Populations

    Guerilla Warfare | In August, troops started the slow process of withdrawing, and when Nixon took office, the U.S. troops in Vietnam numbered about 540,000. Nixon planned to expand the war into neutral Cambodia to cut off North Vietnamese supply lines, so he ordered the widespread bombing of Cambodia.

  • Homefront: Kent State Shootings

    The Kent State Shootings took place where the National Guard troops sent to control demonstrators shot randomly into a large group of students and caused 4 deaths and nine injuries.

  • Homefront: Repealing the Tonkin Gulf Resolution

    Congress repealed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution because they were upset by the Cambodian invasion.

  • Homefront: Pentagon Papers

    The New York Times published the Pentagon Papers, a collection of secret government documents relating to the war, which revealed that the government had misled the American people about the course of the war.

  • Battle: North vs. South Vietnam

    North Vietnam staged a major invasion of South Vietnam in order to reveal the weaknesses of Nixon’s Vietnamization strategy (help train the south Vietnamese soldiers to give them more control their fighting in the Civil War), and as a response, Nixon ordered heavy bombing of North Vietnam.

  • Diplomacy: Peace Settlement

    A peace settlement was created where negotiators in Paris announced a cease-fire, a prisoner-exchange agreement was created, and the US pledged to withdraw remaining forces and help rebuild Vietnam.

  • Event: South Vietnamese Troops Retreat

    North Vietnamese troops overran the northern part of South Vietnam and new waves of refuges poured into Saigon after South Vietnamese troops retreated.

  • Event: South Vietnam Surrenders

    South Vietnam surrendered and Vietnam fell under communist rule.