1. THE VIETNAM WAR

2. Close your copybooks and pay attention to every single detail !
The following slides will teach you various information (TEXT AND IMAGES) about the Vietnam War. Memorize as many details as possible to be able to do the next exercise.
Close your copybooks and pay attention to every single detail !

4. FIGURES and FACTS November 1st, 1955 – April 30th 1975
More than 58,000 killed
Over 300,000 wounded and 14,000 disabled
Longest war in U.S. history

5. BACKGROUND of THE WAR
Vietnam: French colony invaded by the Japanese during World War 2
1945 = The French returned to control Vietnam
Ho Chi Minh, communist leader of the Vietnamese controlled North Vietnam and was sent aid by China
France was sent aid by the US

6. REASONS FOR U.S. involvement
President Truman’s policy of containment : resist expansion of communism around the world
President Eisenhower’s domino theory – belief that if a country fell to communism, neighbouring countries would fall too

7. A DIVIDED VIETNAM North Vietnam South Vietnam
July 1954: Geneva Accords = Vietnam divided near the 17th parallel into 2 separate nations
North Vietnam
South Vietnam
Communist regime led by Ho Chi Minh
led by Ngo Dinh Diem, placed into office by the U.S. Ngo Dinh Diem was a Catholic who wanted to restrict Buddhist practices across South Vietnam

8. A focus on the 1960s
1964: North Vietnamese forces attacked US Navy ships in the Gulf of Tonkin
 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave President Johnson authorization to use military forces in Vietnam without a formal declaration of war by Congress
 400,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam by the end of 1966
President Lyndon Baines Johnson signing the resolution on August 10, 1964

9. 1968: the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong (nationalistic and communist liberation front in South Vietnam) launched the Tet Offensive, attacking nearly 30 U.S. targets and dozens of other cities in South Vietnam all at once  defeat for the U.S.

10.  1968: My Lai Massacre = frustrated U. S
 1968: My Lai Massacre = frustrated U.S. soldiers killed hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians in a small village

11. THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT
 It gained momentum as student protesters, countercultural hippies and many mainstream Americans opposed the war
Associated with draft resistence and draft evasion (draft = enrôlement): civilians refused to be sent to war or stay on the battlefield.
Demonstrators burning draft cards

12. AFTER the 1960s
President Nixon promoted vietnamization of the war, promising to withdraw U.S. troops gradually and hand over the management of the war effort to the South Vietnamese
 Cease-fire signed in January 1973: the last U.S. troops left in March 1973
President Richard Nixon explaining the concept of vietnamization of the war

13. EFFECTS OF THE WAR
The war is considered a traumatizing defeat in the U.S. history
Americans began to distrust and question the government
The War Powers Act was enacted in 1973 : the U.S. President can’t send troops anywhere without the Congress’s approval