1955 – 1975
The wars in Vietnam grew from Vietnamese anticolonial struggle against France, the unresolved 1954 Geneva settlement and partition, rival states in North and South, southern insurgency, and escalating intervention by the United States and its allies alongside support from China and the Soviet Union. It was simultaneously a civil, revolutionary, decolonization, and Cold War conflict—not merely an American proxy war. The United States deployed ground forces from 1965, conducted enormous bombing campaigns across Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and withdrew forces under the 1973 Paris agreement. South Vietnam fell in 1975. Vietnamese soldiers and civilians bore most deaths; massacre, imprisonment, assassination, forced displacement, unexploded ordnance, and chemical defoliants extended the consequences far beyond U.S. domestic politics.
Chapter-by-chapter narrative with maps, primary sources, and key events.
Explore battles on a live map with a timeline slider and territory overlays.
Deep-dive into every major engagement — commanders, casualties, significance.
Biographical flip cards with real portraits, facts, and full biography pages.
Trace each figure's full life journey — birth, education, battles, and death — on a live map.
Scroll-driven visualization of casualties — each dot a thousand lives.
Weapons, war machines, and the military innovations that defined how this conflict was fought.
Cause-and-effect chains tracing the war's long shadow on history.
War crimes, massacres, and the darkest chapters of this conflict — documented for history.
The wars in Vietnam grew from Vietnamese anticolonial struggle against France, the unresolved 1954 Geneva settlement and partition, rival states in North and South, southern insurgency, and escalating intervention by the United States and its allies alongside support from China and the Soviet Union. It was simultaneously a civil, revolutionary, decolonization, and Cold War conflict—not merely an American proxy war. The United States deployed ground forces from 1965, conducted enormous bombing campaigns across Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and withdrew forces under the 1973 Paris agreement. South Vietnam fell in 1975. Vietnamese soldiers and civilians bore most deaths; massacre, imprisonment, assassination, forced displacement, unexploded ordnance, and chemical defoliants extended the consequences far beyond U.S. domestic politics.
The Vietnam War was fought from 1955 to 1975.
The Vietnam War was fought between US & South Vietnam and North Vietnam & Viet Cong.
An estimated 3,600,000 people died in The Vietnam War, including roughly 1,600,000 military and 2,000,000 civilian deaths. Figures are scholarly estimates and vary by source.
Major engagements included Easter Offensive (Nguyen Hue Offensive), Tet Offensive, Battle of Dien Bien Phu, and Siege of Khe Sanh.