Vietnam

Vietnam War

  • American aid to Diem increased

  • Number of U.S military advisors in South Vietnam rises to 12,000

  • President Diem is overthrown and then killed in a US-backed military coup

  • Viet Cong, the communist guerillas operating in South Vietnam, defeat units of the ARVN, the South Vietnamese Army

  • United States enters war

  • Golf of Tonkin Incident

    The United States says North Vietnamese patrol boats fire on two US Navy destroyers
  • United States Congress approves Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

    authorizing military action in region
  • 200,000 American combat troops arrive in South Vietnam

  • United States troop members in Vietnam rise to 400,000

  • Tet Offensive

    a combined assault by Viet Cong and the North and the North Vietnamese army on US positions begins
  • More than 500 civilians die in the US massacre at My Lai

    Thousands are killed by communist forces during their occupation of the city Hue
  • Ho Chi Minh dies

  • President Nixon begins to reduce US ground troops in Vietnam as domestic public opposition to the war grows

  • Ceasefire agreement in Paris

    US troop pullout completed by March
  • North Vietnamese troops invade South Vietnam and take control of the whole country after South Vietnamese President, Duong Van Minh surrenders.