The Tet Offensive: The Most Significant Events In The Vietnam War

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The Vietnam War was a terrible war fought between the years of 1945 to 1975. Even though the war started in 1945, America did not enter the war until 1961. During 1945 World War II was nearing an end, the Japanese invaded Vietnam, kicked out the French colonial government, and seized control of Vietnam by controlling Bao Dai, the emperor of Vietnam. The history of Vietnam is filled with information, a few of those things would be: how it started, how the United States (U.S.) got involved, the different things that happened during the war, and how the war ended. On September 2, 1945, a scrawny man in a plain khaki tunic spoke before a crowd of half a million people at Ba Dinh square in Hanoi, Vietnam. That day, shops, offices, and schools…show more content…
These two platoons went through a dozen camps killing hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese citizens, because this was such scandal, know one knew about it until it was released by the Pentagon on November 13, 1969.(Prados 184) On March 31, President Johnson, in a television address, announced a partial halt to the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam, a call to North Vietnam to begin peace talks. On May 13, formal peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam were openly held in Paris.(Karnow 523) In August, Richard Nixon was nominated for the presidency by the Republican Party. On October 31, 1968, President Johnson announced a complete halt to the bombing of North Vietnam. On November 5, Nixon is elected President with Gerald Ford as his vice-president.(Leone 138) On March 15, 1969, Nixon found out that the Vietcong were hiding in Cambodia, so he ordered the immediate bombing of these sanctuaries, but because he was bombing sanctuaries, it was never released to the American public.(Prados 193) In May of 1969, American soldier commitment was at its peak at 543,000, also during May, President Nixon announced his first major troop withdrawal and pledged to replace the Selective Service Act with a lottery. In June Nixon announced that twenty-five thousand U.S. troops would be withdrawn and replaced by South Vietnamese soldiers. (Leone

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