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Geneva Conference
A 1954 peace conference at the end of the First Indochina War, prompted by the stunning French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. The conference issued the Geneva Accords, which divided Vietnam officially into North Vietnam and South Vietnam along the 17th Parallel as a temporary measure and promised free Vietnam-wide elections for 1956 (although these elections never occurred).
Christmas Bombing
An intensive bombing campaign against Hanoi that President Richard M. Nixon launched in late December 1972, in an attempt to force the North Vietnamese into a peace settlement. The NVA did not surrender but instead called for a Cease-Fire, which was signed in January 1973.
Operation Rolling Thunder
A sustained U.S. bombing effort against North Vietnam authorized by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 and lasting until 1968. Rolling Thunder was launched in response to a Viet Cong raid on a U.S. military base at Pleiku that killed several U.S. servicemen. When the air strikes failed to end the war, Johnson increased the number of U.S. soldiers in South Vietnam from roughly 200,000 to over 500,000.
Tet Offensive
A massive offensive launched by Viet Cong guerrillas on January 30, 1968, the Vietnamese new year holiday of Tet. The Tet Offensive comprised simultaneous attacks on dozens of U.S.-controlled sites in South Vietnam. Although the offensive resulted in a tactical victory for the United States and many Viet Cong casualties, the American public saw it as a setback, as the U.S. military and President Lyndon B. Johnson had led them to believe that the Viet Cong was already well on its way to defeat. The Tet Offensive caused public support for the war to plummet in the United States, especially when the U.S. military requested 200,000 soldiers in the months following the attacks.
My Lai Massacre
A 1968 raid on the tiny village of My Lai by an American unit in South Vietnam. The soldiers, angry and frustrated at their inability to find Viet Cong operatives in the village, killed up to 500 unarmed Vietnamese civilians—men, women, children, and elderly—without provocation. News of the massacre surfaced in 1969, outraging Americans and turning public opinion against the U.S. military. The leader of the company, Lieutenant William Calley, was court-martialed in 1971 and sentenced to a life term but later paroled.
Watergate Scandal
A domestic scandal in the United States that began in the summer of 1972, when police arrested five men breaking into the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. President Richard M. Nixon publicly denied having any prior knowledge of the incident and created a special investigative committee to look into the matter. Eventually, it was revealed that Nixon had authorized both the break-in and the cover-up that followed. As the scandal exploded, calls arose for Nixon’s impeachment; Nixon ultimately resigned in 1974. Taking advantage of the confusion and distraction in the Nixon administration, North Vietnamese forces moved into South Vietnam, setting the stage for an offensive in the spring of 1975 that led to the fall of Saigon.
