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Domino Theory coined- Eisenhower - inlight of Vietnam
President Dwight D. Eisenhower coins one of the most famous Cold War phrases when he suggests the fall of French Indochina to the communists could create a “domino” effect in Southeast Asia. The so-called “domino theory” dominated U.S. thinking about Vietnam for the next decade. -
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. -
Assassination of Diem
Ngô Đình Diệm was a Vietnamese politician. He was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam, and then served as President of South Vietnam from 1955 until he was captured and assassinated during the 1963 military coup -
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
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. -
LBJ ordered 1st troops to Vietnam
Under the authority of President Lyndon B. Johnson, the United States first deployed troops to Vietnam in 1965 in response to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident of August 2 and 4, 1964. -
My Lai Massacre
The My Lai massacre was one of the most horrific incidents of violence committed against unarmed civilians during the Vietnam War. A company of American soldiers brutally killed most of the people—women, children and old men—in the village of My Lai on March 16, 1968. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was a coordinated series of North Vietnamese attacks on more than 100 cities and outposts in South Vietnam. The offensive was an attempt to foment rebellion among the South Vietnamese population and encourage the United States to scale back its involvement in the Vietnam War. -
Nixon sends troops into Cambodia
He announced his decision to launch American forces into Cambodia with the special objective of capturing COSVN, "the headquarters of the entire communist military operation in South Vietnam." Nixon's speech on national television on 30 April 1970 was called "vintage Nixon" by Kissinger. -
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. -
Kent State shooting
The Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4 massacre and the Kent State massacre, 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, 40 mi south of Cleveland -
Nixon’s Christmas bombing
Having been overwhelmingly reelected to a second term, President Richard Nixon on this day in 1972 ordered the start of a massive, two-week bombing campaign of communist North Vietnam. American B-52s and fighter-bombers dropped more than 20,000 tons of bombs on the cities of Hanoi and Haiphong. During the attacks, the U.S. Air Force lost 15 of the 129 B-52 bombers engaged in the air raids, plus 11 other aircraft. North Vietnam claimed that more than 1,600 civilians were killed. -
Paris Peace Accords
The Paris Peace Accords, (Vietnamese: Hiệp định Paris về Việt Nam) officially titled the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet Nam (Hiệp định về chấm dứt chiến tranh, lập lại hòa bình ở Việt Nam), was a peace treaty signed on January 27, 1973, to establish peace in Vietnam and end the Vietnam War. -
War Powers Act
The War Powers Resolution of 1973 (also known as the War Powers Act) "is a congressional resolution designed to limit the U.S. president's ability to initiate or escalate military actions abroad.” As part of our system of governmental “checks and balances,” the law aims to check the executive branch's power -
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". -
Saigon Falls
The Fall of Saigon, also known as the Liberation of Saigon by North Vietnamese, 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.