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- More than 3 million people (including over 58,000 Americans) were killed in the Vietnam War, and more than half of the dead were Vietnamese civilians. Opposition to the war in the United States bitterly divided Americans, even after President Richard Nixon signed the Paris Peace Accords and ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973.
www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-history
6 days ago · The Vietnam War (1954–75) was a conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam and its allies in South Vietnam, the Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. It was part of a larger regional conflict as well as a manifestation of the Cold War.
- Vietnam War
The Vietnam War had its origins in the broader Indochina...
- Fall of Saigon
Vietnam War - Fall, Saigon, US Withdrawal: In early March...
- Negotiation, Withdrawal, Conflict
Vietnam War - Negotiation, Withdrawal, Conflict: On January...
- The Gulf of Tonkin
Analyze the effects of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed...
- Tet Brings The War Home
Vietnam War Demonstrator offering a flower to a military...
- The Conflict Deepens
Vietnam War - Conflict, US Involvement, Aftermath: The Diem...
- De-escalation, Negotiation, Vietnamization
Vietnam War - De-escalation, Negotiation, Vietnamization:...
- Diem Regime, Viet Cong, Conflict
Diem’s unexpected offensive against communist political...
- Vietnam War
- Roots of The Vietnam War
- When Did The Vietnam War Start?
- The Viet Cong
- Domino Theory
- Gulf of Tonkin
- William Westmoreland
- Vietnam War Protests
- Tet Offensive
- Vietnamization
- My Lai Massacre
Vietnam, a nation in Southeast Asia on the eastern edge of the Indochinese peninsula, had been under French colonial rule since the 19th century. During World War II, Japanese forces invaded Vietnam. To fight off both Japanese occupiers and the French colonial administration, political leader Ho Chi Minh—inspired by Chinese and Soviet communism—for...
The Vietnam War and active U.S. involvement in the war began in 1954, though ongoing conflict in the region had stretched back several decades. After Ho’s communist forces took power in the north, armed conflict between northern and southern armies continued until the northern Viet Minh’s decisive victory in the Battle of Dien Bien Phuin May 1954. ...
With the Cold War intensifying worldwide, the United States hardened its policies against any allies of the Soviet Union, and by 1955 President Dwight D. Eisenhowerhad pledged his firm support to Diem and South Vietnam. With training and equipment from American military and the CIA, Diem’s security forces cracked down on Viet Minh sympathizers in t...
A team sent by President John F. Kennedyin 1961 to report on conditions in South Vietnam advised a build-up of American military, economic and technical aid in order to help Diem confront the Viet Cong threat. Working under the “domino theory,” which held that if one Southeast Asian country fell to communism, many other countries would follow, Kenn...
A coup by some of his own generals succeeded in toppling and killing Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, in November 1963, three weeks before Kennedy was assassinatedin Dallas, Texas. The ensuing political instability in South Vietnam persuaded Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamarato further increase U.S. ...
In contrast to the air attacks on North Vietnam, the U.S.-South Vietnamese war effort in the south was fought primarily on the ground, largely under the command of General William Westmoreland, in coordination with the government of General Nguyen Van Thieu in Saigon. Westmoreland pursued a policy of attrition, aiming to kill as many enemy troops a...
By November 1967, the number of American troops in Vietnam was approaching 500,000, and U.S. casualties had reached 15,058 killed and 109,527 wounded. As the war stretched on, some soldiers came to mistrust the government’s reasons for keeping them there, as well as Washington’s repeated claims that the war was being won. The later years of the war...
By the end of 1967, Hanoi’s communist leadership was growing impatient as well, and sought to strike a decisive blow aimed at forcing the better-supplied United States to give up hopes of success. On January 31, 1968, some 70,000 DRV forces under General Vo Nguyen Giap launched the Tet Offensive(named for the lunar new year), a coordinated series o...
Nixon sought to deflate the anti-war movement by appealing to a “silent majority” of Americans who he believed supported the war effort. In an attempt to limit the volume of American casualties, he announced a program called Vietnamization: withdrawing U.S. troops, increasing aerial and artillery bombardment and giving the South Vietnamese the trai...
The next few years would bring even more carnage, including the horrifying revelation that U.S. soldiers had mercilessly slaughtered more than 400 unarmed civilians in the village of My Lai in March 1968. After the My Lai Massacre, anti-war protests continued to build as the conflict wore on. In 1968 and 1969, there were hundreds of protest marches...
Sep 13, 2017 · The United States, France, China, the Soviet Union, Cambodia, Laos and other countries would over time become involved in the lengthy war, which finally ended in 1975 when North and South...
- 4 min
United States involvement in the Vietnam War began shortly after the end of World War II in Asia, first in an extremely limited capacity and escalating over a period of 20 years. The U.S. military presence peaked in April 1969, with 543,000 American military personnel stationed in Vietnam. [1]
The Vietnam War pitted communist North Vietnam and the Viet Cong against South Vietnam and the United States. The war ended when U.S. forces withdrew in 1973 and Vietnam unified...
6 days ago · In late July Johnson took the final steps that would commit the United States to full-scale war in Vietnam: he authorized the dispatch of 100,000 troops immediately and an additional 100,000 in 1966. The president publicly announced his decisions at a news conference at the end of July.
It lasted almost 20 years, with direct US military involvement ending in 1973. The conflict spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.
