Important dates in Vietnam’s history:
1859-1883 – France slowly colonized Indochina.
1940 – Japan takes control of Indochina.
(1945 – Viet Minh seizes power. Ho Chi Minh declares independence and establishes the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
1946 – In November, French troops attacked the Viet Minh in Haiphong, starting a war of resistance against the suzerain.
1950 – The Democratic Republic of Vietnam is recognized by China and the Soviet Union.
1953-1954 – Viet Minh forces attack and eventually capture an important isolated French military base in the town of Dien Bien Phu after seven weeks of fighting. This battle effectively marked the end of French field forces in Vietnam. During the siege, the French government agrees to peace talks in Geneva.
1954 – Vietnam is divided into North and South at the Geneva Conference.
1956 – South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem launches a campaign against dissidents. Conflict between the two hostile nations raged for the next two decades in what became known as the Vietnam War or the Second Indochina War. The United States becomes deeply involved in supporting South Korea.
1964 – Gulf of Tonkin Incident: The United States announces that North Vietnamese patrol boats fire on two U.S. Navy destroyers. U.S. Congress approves the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and authorizes military action in the region.
1965 – 200,000 American combat troops arrive in South Vietnam.
1966 – U.S. military strength in Vietnam increases to 400,000, increasing to 500,000 by 1967.
1968 – The Tet Offensive, a joint attack on U.S. military positions by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces, begins.
1969 – Ho Chi Minh dies. In response to growing domestic opposition to the war, President Nixon began reducing the number of US ground forces in Vietnam.
1973 – A ceasefire is reached in Paris, and the withdrawal of US forces is completed by March.
1975 – After South Vietnam’s President Duong Van Minh surrendered, the North Vietnamese army invaded South Vietnam and took control of the entire country.
1976 – Vietnam is reunified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Hundreds of thousands of people, including many “boat people”, have fled the country.
1979 – Vietnam invades Cambodia and overthrows the Khmer Rouge regime, Pol Pot. In response, Chinese troops cross Vietnam’s northern border. They are pushed back by Vietnamese troops.
1986 – Nguyen Van Linh becomes party leader. He introduces more liberal economic policies.
1989 – Vietnamese troops withdraw from Cambodia.
1994 – The United States lifts a 30-year embargo.
1995 – Vietnam and the United States restore full diplomatic relations. Vietnam becomes an official member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
2000 – US President Bill Clinton makes a three-day official visit.
2001 – The United States and Vietnam sign a trade agreement that normalizes trade conditions between the two countries.
2002 – Russia returns Cam Ranh Bay Naval Base, once the largest Soviet base outside the Warsaw Pact.
2004 – The first U.S. commercial aircraft lands in Ho Chi Minh City since the end of the Vietnam War.
2007 – Vietnam joins the World Trade Organization.
2011 – Vietnam begins a joint operation with the United States to clean up contamination from Orange defoliant, a toxic defoliant widely used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. China and Vietnam sign South China Sea Dispute Management Agreement
2014 – State media marks the anniversary of the 1974 conflict between South Vietnam and China over the Paracel Islands for the first time, showing rising tensions over China’s intentions in the region.
2016 – The United States lifts a long-standing ban on arms sales to Vietnam.
2024 – Vietnam is rocked by a $44 billion fraud scandal. Billionaire real estate developer Truong My Lan was sentenced to death for plundering one of the country’s largest banks over an 11-year period.
