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Vietnam War

armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia between North Vietnam and South Vietnam, from 1955 to 1975

66 dated entries naming Vietnam War, drawn from 20 separate years between 1941 CE and 2020 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

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20th century

  • 1941May 19 – The Viet Minh is formed at Pác Bó in Vietnam, to overthrow French rule of the nation, as an alliance between the Indochina Communist party, led by Ho Chi Minh, and the Nationalist party. It will become the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War.source
  • 1955November 1 – Official start date of the Vietnam War between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and Republic of Vietnam; the north is allied with the Viet Cong.source
  • 1959September 26 – First large unit action of the Vietnam War takes place, when two companies of the ARVN's 23rd Division are ambushed by a well-organized Viet Cong force of several hundred, identified as the "2nd Liberation Battalion".source
  • 1960March 6 – Vietnam War: The United States announces that 3,500 American soldiers will be sent to Vietnam.source
  • 1962December 2 – Vietnam War: After a trip to Vietnam at the request of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield becomes the first American official to make a pessimistic public comment on the war's progress.source
  • 1963January 2 – Vietnam War – Battle of Ap Bac: The Viet Cong win their first major victory.source
  • 1964August 2 – Vietnam War: United States destroyer Maddox is attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin. Air support from the carrier USS Ticonderoga sinks one gunboat, while the other two leave the battle.source
  • 1964July 19 – Vietnam War: At a rally in Saigon, South Vietnamese Prime Minister and military leader Nguyễn Khánh calls for expanding the war into North Vietnam.source
  • 1964May 2 – Vietnam War: Attack on USNS Card – An explosion caused by Viet Cong commandos causes carrier USNS Card to sink in the port of Saigon.source
  • 1965August 18 – Vietnam War: Operation Starlite – 5,500 United States Marines destroy a Viet Cong stronghold on the Van Tuong peninsula in Quảng Ngãi Province, in the first major American ground battle of the war. The Marines were tipped off by a Viet Cong deserter who said that there was an attack planned against the U.S. base at Chu Lai.source
  • 1965July 24 – Vietnam War: Four F-4C Phantoms escorting a bombing raid at Kang Chi are targeted by antiaircraft missiles, in the first such attack against American planes in the war. One is shot down and the other 3 sustain damage.source
  • 1965June 10 – Vietnam War – Battle of Dong Xoai: About 1,500 Viet Cong mount a mortar attack on Đồng Xoài, overrunning its military headquarters and the adjoining militia compound.source
  • 1965March 2 – Vietnam War: Operation Rolling Thunder – The United States Air Force 2nd Air Division, United States Navy and South Vietnamese air force begin a 3-year aerial bombardment campaign against North Vietnam.source
  • 1965November 27 – Vietnam War: The Pentagon tells U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson that if planned major sweep operations to neutralize Viet Cong forces during the next year are to succeed, the number of American troops in Vietnam will have to be increased from 120,000 to 400,000.source
  • 1965November 8 – Vietnam War – Operation Hump: The United States Army 173rd Airborne is ambushed by over 1,200 Viet Cong.source
  • 1965October 15 – Vietnam War: The Catholic Worker Movement stages an anti-war protest in Manhattan. One draft card burner is arrested, the first under the new law.source
  • 1965October 30 – Vietnam War: Near Da Nang, United States Marines repel an intense attack by Viet Cong forces, killing 56 guerrillas. A sketch of Marine positions is found on the dead body of a 13-year-old Vietnamese boy who sold drinks to the Marines the day before.source
  • 1965September 2 – Vietnam War: In a follow-up to August's Operation Starlite, United States Marines and South Vietnamese forces initiate Operation Piranha on the Batangan Peninsula, 23 mi km south of the Chu Lai Marine base.source
  • 1965September 20 – Vietnam War: An USAF F-104 Starfighter piloted by Captain Philip Eldon Smith is shot down by a Chinese MiG-19 Farmer. The pilot is held until March 15, 1973.source
  • 1966August 18 – Vietnam War – Battle of Long Tan: D Company, 6th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment, meets and defeats a Viet Cong force estimated to be four times larger, in Phuoc Tuy Province, Republic of Vietnam.source
  • 1966February 7 – Lyndon B. Johnson of the United States and Nguyễn Cao Kỳ of South Vietnam convene with other officials in a summit in Honolulu, Hawaii to discuss the course of the Vietnam War.source
  • 1966July 3 – 31 people are arrested when a demonstration by approximately 4,000 anti-Vietnam War protesters in front of the United States Embassy in London in Grosvenor Square turns violent.source
  • 1967April 15 – Large demonstrations are held against US involvement in the Vietnam War in New York City and San Francisco. The march, organized by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, from Central Park to the United Nations drew hundreds of thousands of people, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Harry Belafonte, James Bevel, and Dr. Benjamin Spock, who marched and spoke at the event. A simultaneous march in San Francisco is attended by Coretta Scott King.source
  • 1967December 5 – In New York City, Benjamin Spock and Allen Ginsberg are arrested for protesting against the Vietnam War.source
  • 1967November 11 – Vietnam War: In a ceremony in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 3 United States prisoners of war are released by the Viet Cong and turned over to American "New Left" antiwar activist Tom Hayden.source
  • 1967November 21 – Vietnam War: United States General William Westmoreland tells news reporters: "I am absolutely certain that whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing."source
  • 1967November 29 – Vietnam War: U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announces his resignation to become president of the World Bank. McNamara's resignation follows U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson's outright rejection of McNamara's early November recommendations to freeze troop levels, stop the bombing of North Vietnam, and hand over ground fighting to South Vietnam.source
  • 1967November 3 – Vietnam War – Battle of Dak To: Around Đắk Tô (located about 280 miles north of Saigon near the Cambodian border), heavy casualties are suffered on both sides; U.S. troops narrowly win the battle on November 22.source
  • 1967November 30 – U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy announces his candidacy for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, challenging incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson over the Vietnam War.source
  • 1967October 12 – Vietnam War: U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk states during a news conference that, because of North Vietnam's opposition, proposals by the U.S. Congress for peace initiatives are futile.source
  • 1967October 18 – Vietnam War: Students at the University of Wisconsin–Madison protest over recruitment by Dow Chemical on the university campus; 76 are injured in the resulting riot.source
  • 1967October 21 – Approximately 70,000 Vietnam War protesters march in Washington, D.C. and rally at the Lincoln Memorial; in a successive march that day, 50,000 people march to the Pentagon, where Allen Ginsberg, Abbie Hoffman, and Jerry Rubin symbolically chant to "levitate" the building and "exorcise the evil within."source
  • 1967September 4 – Vietnam War – Operation Swift: The United States Marines launch a search and destroy mission in Quảng Nam and Quảng Tín provinces. The ensuing 4-day battle in Que Son Valley kills 114 Americans and 376 North Vietnamese.source
  • 1968February 1 – Vietnam War: Execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém – A Viet Cong officer is summarily executed by Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, a South Vietnamese National Police Chief. The event is photographed by Eddie Adams. The photo makes headlines around the world, eventually winning the 1969 Pulitzer Prize, and sways U.S. public opinion against the war.source
  • 1968February 24 – Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive is halted; South Vietnam recaptures Huế.source
  • 1968January 21 – Vietnam War: Battle of Khe Sanh – One of the most publicized and controversial battles of the war begins, ending on April 8.source
  • 1968January 30 – Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive begins as Viet Cong forces launch a series of surprise attacks across South Vietnam.source
  • 1968March 10–11 – Vietnam War: Battle of Lima Site 85, the largest single ground combat loss of United States Air Force members (12) during the (at this time) secret war later known as the Laotian Civil War.source
  • 1968March 16 – Vietnam War – My Lai massacre: American troops kill between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians and rape women and children. The story, initially covered up as a military victory, will first become public in November 1969 and will help undermine public support for the U.S. efforts in Vietnam.source
  • 1968March 19–23 – Afrocentrism, Black Power, Vietnam War: Students at Howard University in Washington, D.C., signal a new era of militant student activism on college campuses in the U.S. Students stage rallies, protests and a 5-day sit-in, laying siege to the administration building, shutting down the university in protest over its ROTC program and the Vietnam War, and demanding a more Afrocentric curriculum.source
  • 1968May 17 – The Catonsville Nine enter the Selective Service offices in Catonsville, Maryland, take dozens of selective service draft records, and burn them with napalm as a protest against the Vietnam War.source
  • 1968September 23 – Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive comes to an end in South Vietnam.source
  • 1969August 4 – Vietnam War: At the apartment of French intermediary Jean Sainteny in Paris, U.S. representative Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuan Thuy begin secret peace negotiations. They eventually fail since the two sides cannot agree to any terms.source
  • 1969December 1 – Vietnam War: The first draft lottery in the United States since World War II is held. September 14 is the first of the 366 days of the year selected, meaning that anyone born on September 14 in the years from 1944 to 1951 would be the first to be summoned. On January 4, 1970, The New York Times will run a long article, "Statisticians Charge Draft Lottery Was Not Random".source
  • 1969July 30 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon makes an unscheduled visit to South Vietnam, meeting with President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu and U.S. military commanders.source
  • 1969May 10 – The Battle of Dong Ap Bia, also known as Hamburger Hill, begins during the Vietnam War.source
  • 1969November 19 – Vietnam War: A Cleveland, Ohio newspaper, The Plain Dealer, publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam.source
  • 1969October 15 – Vietnam War: Hundreds of thousands of people take part in Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam demonstrations across the United States.source
  • 1970November 21 – Vietnam War – Operation Ivory Coast: A joint Air Force and Army team raids the 4Sơn Tây prison camp in an attempt to free American prisoners of war thought to be held there (no Americans are killed, but the prisoners have already moved to another camp; all U.S. POWs are moved to a handful of central prison complexes as a result of this raid).source
  • 1970October 30 – In Vietnam, the worst monsoon to hit the area in six years causes large floods, kills 293, leaves 200,000 homeless and virtually halts the Vietnam War.source
  • 1970September 5 – Vietnam War: Operation Jefferson Glenn: The United States 101st Airborne Division and the South Vietnamese 1st Infantry Division initiate a new operation in Thua Thien Province (the operation ends in October 1971).source
  • 1971June 13 – Vietnam War: The New York Times begins to publish the Pentagon Papers.source
  • 1971October 29 – Vietnam War – Vietnamization: The total number of American troops still in Vietnam drops to a record low of 196,700 (the lowest since January 1966).source
  • 1972June 8 – Vietnam War: Associated Press photographer Nick Ut takes his Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a naked nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc running down a road after being burned by napalm.source
  • 1972March 30 – Vietnam War: The Easter Offensive begins after North Vietnamese forces cross into the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) of South Vietnamsource
  • 1972November 11 – Vietnam War: Vietnamization – The United States Army turns over the massive Long Binh military base to South Vietnam.source
  • 1973January 15 – Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, U.S. President Richard Nixon announces the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam.source
  • 1973January 27 – U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War ends with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords.source
  • 1975April 25 – Vietnam War: As North Vietnamese Army forces close in on the South Vietnamese capital Saigon, the Australian Embassy is closed and evacuated, almost 10 years to the day since the first Australian troop commitment to South Vietnam.source
  • 1975April 29 – Vietnam War: North Vietnam concludes its East Sea Campaign by capturing all of the Spratly Islands that were being held by South Vietnam.source
  • 1975April 30 – Vietnam War – Fall of Saigon: The Vietnam War concludes as Communist forces from North Vietnam take over Saigon, resulting in mass evacuation of the remaining American troops and South Vietnam civilians. As the capital is taken, South Vietnam surrenders unconditionally and is replaced with a temporary Provisional Government.source
  • 1975April 4 – Vietnam War: The first military Operation Babylift flight, C5A 80218, crashes 27 minutes after takeoff, killing 138 on board; 176 survive the crash.source
  • 1975March 10 – Vietnam War: North Vietnamese troops attack Ban Mê Thuột in South Vietnam on their way to capturing Saigon.source
  • 1995July 11 – President Clinton announces the restoration of United States–Vietnam relations twenty years after the Vietnam War.source
  • 1997May 15 – The United States government acknowledges existence of the "Secret War" in Laos (1953–1975) during the Vietnam War, and dedicates the Laos Memorial in honor of Hmong and other "Secret War" veterans.source

21st century

  • 2020May 27 – COVID-19 pandemic: The U.S. death toll passes 100,000 – more Americans than were killed in the Vietnam War and Korean War combined, and approaching that of the First World War, where 116,000 Americans died in combat. The total number of cases continues to rise, although the rate is slowing.source

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