Vietnam: American Involvement

1954 French defeated at Dien

Bien Phu
1955 Ngo Dinh Diem ‘elected’
as president of South
Vietnam
1957 Vietminh start guerrilla
war in South Vietnam
1961 Kennedy pledges extra
‘aid’
1962 12,000 ‘advisers’,
Strategic Hamlet begins
1963 Buddhist monks burn,
Diem and JFK killed
1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution
1965 Operation Rolling
Thunder, 200 000 US
combat troops
1967 500 000 US troops
1968 Tet Offensive, huge anti-
war demos, Nixon
elected
1969 Cambodia bombed,
‘Vietnamization’
1970 Kent State Uni
1971 My Lai court case,
140 000 troops
1973 Cease-fire, US leaves
1975 NLF capture Saigon
Task: Make an illustrated
presentation using this timeline
(PowerPoint).