Timeline

    • 1955: Catholic nationalist Ngo Dinh Diem emerges as the leader of South Vietnam, with U.S. backing, while Ho Chi Minh leads the communist state to the north.

    • July 1959: The first U.S. soldiers are killed in South Vietnam when guerrillas raid their living quarters near Saigon.

    • September 1960: Ho Chi Minh, facing failing health, is replaced by Le Duan as head of North Vietnam’s ruling communist party.

    • May 1961: President John F. Kennedy sends helicopters and 400 Green Berets to South Vietnam and authorizes secret operations against the Viet Cong.

  • February 1962: Ngo Dinh Diem survives a bombing of the presidential palace in South Vietnam as Diem’s extreme favoritism toward South Vietnam’s Catholic minority alienates him from most of the South Vietnamese population, including Vietnamese Buddhists.

    • May 1963: In a major incident of what becomes known as the “Buddhist Crisis,” the government of Ngo Dinh Diem opens fire on a crowd of Buddhist protestors in the central Vietnam city of Hue. Eight people, including children, are killed.

    • August 1964: The attacks in the Gulf of Tonkin spur Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which authorizes the president to “take all necessary measures, including the use of armed force” against any aggressor in the conflict.

    • June 1965: General Nguen Van Thieu of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Governmental Military (ARVN), becomes president of South Vietnam.

    • 1966: U.S. troop numbers in Vietnam rise to 400,000.

    • 1967: U.S. troop numbers stationed in Vietnam increase to 500,000.

    • November 1968: Republican Richard M. Nixon wins the U.S. presidential elections on the campaign promises to restore “law and order” and to end the draft.

    • September 1969: Ho Chi Minh dies of a heart attack in Hanoi.

    • February 1970: U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger begins secret peace negotiations with Hanoi politburo member Le Duc Tho in Paris.

    • June 1971: The New York Times publishes a series of articles detailing leaked Defense Department documents about the war, known as the Pentagon Papers. The report reveals the U.S. government had repeatedly and secretly increased U.S. involvement in the war.

  • January 27, 1973: President Nixon signs the Paris Peace Accords, ending direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The North Vietnamese accept a cease fire. But as U.S. troops depart Vietnam, North Vietnamese military officials continue plotting to overtake South Vietnam.

    • August 1974: President Nixon resigns in the face of likely impeachment after the Watergate Scandal is revealed. Gerald R. Ford becomes president.

    • January 1975: President Ford rules out any further U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.

    • July 1975: North and South Vietnam are formally unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam under hardline communist rule.