The Vietnam War
20 Nov 1953 – 30 Apr 197577 items
cold warwarDien Bien Phu to Saigon, 1953 to 1975
Americans call it the Vietnam War; in Vietnam it is the Resistance War against America, or simply the American War. It was also fought in Laos and Cambodia. This timeline opens with French paratroopers dropping into the valley of Dien Bien Phu in November 1953 and closes on 30 April 1975, when a tank broke through the gate of the Independence Palace in Saigon.
Reading it
Bands frame the phases: the last campaign of the First Indochina War, the Diệm years, the juntas that followed, Americanization from 1965, Vietnamization from 1969, the Paris talks, and the final offensive of 1975. Longer bands run underneath: the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and the bombing of the North and of Laos.
Zoom in to change the scale. Most of the timeline moves in months and years, Tet 1968 moves in days, and the last day moves in hours: Saigon’s clocks were on UTC+8 then, an hour ahead of Hanoi’s. Open the map: the war runs from Geneva and Paris to Midway, Kent State, the Plain of Jars and Phnom Penh.
Filter by battles for the fighting, air war for the bombing, civilians for what the war did to people who were not fighting it, diplomacy for Geneva and Paris, protest for the movements against it, and laos or cambodia for the war beyond Vietnam’s borders.
The toll
No count is agreed. In 1995 Hanoi put Vietnamese deaths at about 3 million: 1.1 million communist soldiers and 2 million civilians. A demographic study the same year (Hirschman, Preston and Vu) estimated 791,000 to 1,141,000 Vietnamese war deaths for 1965–1975 alone; a 2008 survey-based estimate in the BMJ (Obermeyer, Murray and Gakidou) put violent war deaths in Vietnam from 1955 to 2002 at about 3.8 million. The U.S. Army’s history counts about 254,000 South Vietnamese soldiers killed from 1960 to 1974, and the National Archives lists 58,220 American dead. Laos and Cambodia have no reliable totals.
Items
Operation Castor: paratroopers drop into Dien Bien Phu
The garrison at Dien Bien Phu surrenders
The Geneva Accords divide Vietnam
Diệm wins a referendum against Bảo Đại
Hanoi approves armed struggle in the South
The National Liberation Front is founded
The battle of Ấp Bắc
Deaths at the Huế radio station
Thích Quảng Đức burns himself to death in Saigon
The coup against Diệm
Gulf of Tonkin: the first clash
Gulf of Tonkin: the attack that did not happen
Congress passes the Tonkin Gulf Resolution
Marines land at Da Nang
Martin Luther King’s “Beyond Vietnam”
Tet: a day too early in the Central Highlands
Sappers break into the U.S. Embassy grounds
The flag goes back up over the Citadel
The massacre at Mỹ Lai
Johnson will not run again
Operation Menu: the secret bombing of Cambodia
Nixon and Thiệu meet at Midway
Ho Chi Minh dies
The first draft lottery
Kissinger and Lê Đức Thọ begin their secret talks
Lon Nol ousts Sihanouk
Kent State
The New York Times publishes the Pentagon Papers
The Paris Peace Accords are signed
The ceasefire takes effect
Operation Homecoming: the first prisoners fly out
A ceasefire in Laos
The last American combat troops leave
Congress ends the bombing of Cambodia
Lê Đức Thọ declines the Nobel Peace Prize
Nixon resigns
Phước Long falls
Buôn Ma Thuột
Thiệu gives up the Highlands
Da Nang falls
Operation Babylift: a C-5A crashes
Operation Eagle Pull: the Americans leave Phnom Penh
The Khmer Rouge take Phnom Penh
Thiệu resigns
Rockets on Tân Sơn Nhứt: the last Americans killed in action
A helicopter on the roof of 22 Gia Long Street
The first helicopters land at the DAO compound
Ambassador Martin leaves the embassy
The last Marines leave the embassy roof
Dương Văn Minh orders a ceasefire
Tanks through the gate of the Independence Palace