Kingdom of Van Lang

Between 2787 BC and 2858 BC, the Kingdom of Van Lang is said to have covered an area of what is today Guangdong province and Guangxi Autonomous Region in China, plus the northern part of today’s Vietnam.

Chinese rule

A series of rulers based in China held direct control over Vietnam throughout most of the period between 207 BC and 938 AD.

Vietnamese independence

Vietnam first achieved independence from Chinese rule in 938 AD. In the centuries that followed, however, Vietnam remained largely a tributary state of China. During this time, Vietnam fought off many invasions by both Chinese and Mongol attackers. To prevent further wars with China, the emperor Tran Nhan Trong submitted Vietnam to tributary control by the Yuan Dynasty.

Colonial period

Vietnam’s relative independence collapsed yet again with the invasion of French colonialists in the mid-1800s. At this time, Vietnam became part of French Indochina, which included territories that later became Laos and Cambodia. During WWII, the French were expelled by Japanese forces. At the end of the war, France’s attempt to re-impose its rule over French Indochina ended in their defeat and the partitioning of the country into North Vietnam and South Vietnam.

Vietnam War

Following this partitioning, Vietnam fell victim to the proxy wars of the Cold War. Soviet and Chinese support for the North and French/American support for the South finally led to the Vietnam War. From the 1950s until 1963, the US funded first a French effort and then an American effort to support the Diem government in the Republic of Vietnam against escalating guerrilla attacks fostered by the communist North.

Ever increasing numbers of North Vietnamese guerrillas infiltrated South Vietnam with weapons and supplies brought in via the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Vietnam’s story in this period (and the following 15-plus years) is inexorably tied to attempts to thwart North Vietnam’s utilization of the myriad roads and trails through neighboring Cambodia and Laos.

The US sent its first 100 ‘military advisors’ to Vietnam in 1961. They were accompanied by roughly 400 troops who were part of a special force. The American military presence was boosted to 11,000 soldiers in 1962. In the 1964 Bay of Tonkin incident, Vietnamese shore batteries were alleged to have fired on US warships. The Americans claimed the attack was unprovoked and that they had been in international waters.

The event was used as the legal basis for committing American military to an active role in the war. It was also used as an excuse for the first publically-acknowledged bombing of targets located in North Vietnam. This operation, known as Rolling Thunder, began early in 1965. From then until almost the end of 1969, waves of B-52 bombers dropped twice as much ordinance on North Vietnam than fell during all of WWII.

US involvement in the war reached its peak in 1968, when roughly 500,000 troops from the US joined some 90,000 soldiers from Australia, New Zealand, the UK, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines. The military force of South Vietnam comprised some 1.5 million men at the time.

The turning point of the war came on February 1, 1968. Known as the Tet Offensive, the Viet Cong took advantage of Vietnam’s big annual holiday to launch a huge wave of attacks on more than 100 cities in South Vietnam. Though the offensive was successfully repulsed everywhere but in Hue (which fell under Viet Cong control for almost a month), the writing was now on the wall for South Vietnam.

US forces had been blindsided. A steadily weakening attitude toward the war, both at home and among US troops, suddenly changed from a one of commitment to protecting the Diem government to hunting for a strategy that would allow the US to pull out of Vietnam without suffering too much damage to its reputation as a major military power.

Operation Rolling Thunder, the US Air Force’s carpet bombing of North Vietnam, ended in October of 1968. The US began to pull troops out of Vietnam. The US, North Vietnam, South Vietnam and the Viet Cong began negotiating the full withdrawal of American forces in Paris in 1969.

The talks led to the signing of a cease-fire in Paris on January 27, 1973. The last US troops left Vietnam in March. Some Americans remained in Saigon for just over two years as South Vietnamese forces continued to battle against the combined might of North Vietnamese troops and communist guerrillas. On April 30, 1975, the last Americans fled Saigon by air, just hours before tanks from the North rolled into the city to seize total control of South Vietnam.

Unification of Vietnam

A unified Vietnam struggled with economic, political and social challenges in the decade following the communist takeover. Many people in the former South Vietnam suffered under a range of penalties and restrictions. In 1986, however, the Communist Party of Vietnam implemented a range of economic reforms aimed at liberalising the nation’s economy.

These reforms ushered in a new age of economic prosperity. Though Vietnam remains a communist state, the relaxed economy and political controls have produced a much happier country that is rapidly integrating with the global economy. Foreign investment is flowing into Vietnam, agricultural and manufacturing output is flourishing, and Vietnam Tourism is booming.