Born

31 May: Brooke Shields, US actress

First
3 June: US astronaut Edward White steps out of the space capsule Gemini 4 and dangles in space for 20 minutes, tethered only by a rope. His co-pilot, James McDivitt, remains inside the capsule, which has undertaken the longest space flight yet - four days.

Assassinated
21 Feb: Malcolm X (Malcolm Little), US black nationalist leader is assasinated during a Muslim rally in Harlem in New York City. He made political enemies last year when he founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity.

The United States and the Vietnam War

The United States entered the Vietnam War in earnest in 1965. As there was little popular support for full-scale intervention, President Johnson initially relied on air power. Continuous bombing of communist-held North Vietnam began in March. The first Marines landed days later in the South to defend the Da Nang air base. But South Vietnam forces (known as ARVN) needed help in the field as well and Johnson quietly began agreeing to the requests of General William Westmoreland, commander of American forces in Vietnam, for more ground troops. By the end of the year, 180,000 troops were in the country.

Westmoreland’s strategy was aimed at wearing down the enemy rather than seizing territory. The bombing targeted not only northern industry, and the Ho Chi Minh Trail, (the network of paths by which the North sent men and Chinese- and Russian-provided artillery to the South), but also Southern settlements suspected to be harbouring guerrillas. On the ground, the basic objective was to eliminate as many northern infiltrators and Viet Cong (communist guerrilla fighters) as possible. "Kill ratios" were impressive: in the first engagement with North Vietnamese regulars, at Ia Drang, Americans killed 1200 men while losing only 200.

But numbers weren’t everything. Combat for U.S. soldiers meant slogging through jungles and paddies in pursuit of elusive quarry. Snipers and booby-traps were everywhere; friend and foe were difficult to tell apart and shooting first seemed the safer option. On "search and destroy" missions, peaceful-looking villages were razed and the villagers herded into bleak "strategic hamlets". The drain on troop morale was great. These actions also alienated many South Vietnamese (and many in the ARVN), aggravating the unhappiness caused by the corrupt and repressive U.S.-backed government in Saigon. Back home in the States, news footage and images of injured civilians fuelled antiwar sentiments. In November, 50,000 protestors marched on Washington. The Vietnam War began to look increasingly like a mistake.

Read how the media influenced the Vietnam War