Vietnam TimeLine
1957
| All year | South Vietnamese rebels, Communist-supported, band together to form the Viet Cong. |
1963
| May | Large groups of Buddhists protest Diem's South Vietnamese government. |
| November 1 | U.S.-supported generals overthrow and kill Diem and his brother |
1964
| August 4 | The USS Maddox and the USS C. Turner Joy are attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin. |
| August 7 | Congress passes the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, giving the President retaliatory powers. |
1965
| March 6 | U.S. Marines land in South Vietnam, the first American ground forces in the war. |
1967
| October | 50,000 demonstrators march on Washington, D.C., to protest the war. |
1968
| January 30 | North Vietnam & the VC team up to launch the Tet Offensive, the largest of the war. |
| May | Peace talks begin in Paris. |
1969
| June 8 | Nixon announces Vietnamization, a plan of turning the war over to the South Vietnamese. |
| July | American troops begin their withdrawal from Vietnam. |
1970
| April | Nixon orders the invasion of Cambodia. |
| May 4 | National Guardsmen kill 4 demonstrators at a protest at Kent State University in Ohio. |
| Late June | Nixon ends the campaign in Cambodia |
1971
| March | American Lieutenant William L. Calley, Jr. is convicted on war crimes charges. |
| June | U.S. press publish the Pentagon Papers, which cause public suspicion about the war. |
1972
| March | North Vietnam begins a large-scale invasion of the South. |
| August | The invasion is stopped just before it reaches the southern capital of Saigon. |
1973
| January 27 | The U.S., South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the Viet Cong sign a cease-fire accord. |
| March 29 | The last American forces leave Vietnam. |
1975
| March | The Convoy of Tears, a long, deadly retreat by the South Vietnamese, begins. |
| April 30 | South Vietnam surrenders to the North. |
