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dev-2783-143
Sino-Soviet relations soured after the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968. In October, the Chinese demanded North Vietnam cut relations with Moscow, but Hanoi refused.[249] The Chinese began to withdraw in November 1968 in preparation for a clash with the Soviets, which occurred at Zhenbao Island in March 19...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
143
73,823
74,257
dev-2783-144
China "armed and trained" the Khmer Rouge during the civil war and continued to aid them for years afterward.[250] The Khmer Rouge launched ferocious raids into Vietnam in 1975–1978. When Vietnam responded with an invasion that toppled the Khmer Rouge, China launched a brief, punitive invasion of Vietnam in 1979.
dev-2783
Vietnam War
144
74,258
74,574
dev-2783-145
Soviet ships in the South China Sea gave vital early warnings to Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam. The Soviet intelligence ships would pick up American B-52 bombers flying from Okinawa and Guam. Their airspeed and direction would be noted and then relayed to COSVN, North Vietnam's southern headquarters. Using airspeed...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
145
74,575
75,300
dev-2783-146
The Soviet Union supplied North Vietnam with medical supplies, arms, tanks, planes, helicopters, artillery, anti-aircraft missiles and other military equipment. Soviet crews fired Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles at U.S. F-4 Phantoms, which were shot down over Thanh Hóa in 1965. Over a dozen Soviet citizens lost th...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
146
75,301
75,821
dev-2783-147
Some Russian sources give more specific numbers: Between 1953 and 1991, the hardware donated by the Soviet Union included 2,000 tanks, 1,700 APCs, 7,000 artillery guns, over 5,000 anti-aircraft guns, 158 surface-to-air missile launchers, 120 helicopters. During the war, the Soviets sent North Vietnam annual arms shipme...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
147
75,822
76,495
dev-2783-148
As a result of a decision of the Korean Workers' Party in October 1966, in early 1967 North Korea sent a fighter squadron to North Vietnam to back up the North Vietnamese 921st and 923rd fighter squadrons defending Hanoi. They stayed through 1968, and 200 pilots were reported to have served.[256] In addition, at least ...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
148
76,496
76,877
dev-2783-149
The contribution to North Vietnam by the Republic of Cuba, under Fidel Castro have been recognized several times by representatives of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.[258] Fidel Castro mentioned in his discourses the Batallón Girón (Giron Battalion) as comprising the Cuban contingent that served as military advisor...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
149
76,878
77,780
dev-2783-150
On the anti-communist side, South Korea (a.k.a. the Republic of Korea, ROK) had the second-largest contingent of foreign troops in South Vietnam after the United States. In November 1961, President Park Chung-hee proposed South Korean participation in the war to John F. Kennedy, but Kennedy disagreed.[262] On 1 May 196...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
150
77,781
78,822
dev-2783-151
Approximately 320,000 South Korean soldiers were sent to Vietnam,[265] each serving a one-year tour of duty. Maximum troop levels peaked at 50,000 in 1968, however all were withdrawn by 1973.[266] About 5,099 South Koreans were killed and 10,962 wounded during the war. South Korea claimed to have killed 41,000 Viet Con...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
151
78,823
79,321
dev-2783-152
Thai Army formations, including the Royal Thai Volunteer Regiment (Queen's Cobras) and later the Royal Thai Army Expeditionary Division (Black Panthers), saw action in South Vietnam between 1965 and 1971. Thai forces saw much more action in the covert war in Laos between 1964 and 1972, though Thai regular formations th...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
152
79,322
79,857
dev-2783-153
Australia and New Zealand, close allies of the United States and members of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and the ANZUS military co-operation treaty, sent ground troops to Vietnam. Both nations had gained experience in counterinsurgency and jungle warfare during the Malayan Emergency and World War II. ...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
153
79,858
80,935
dev-2783-154
Some 10,450 Filipino troops were dispatched to South Vietnam. They were primarily engaged in medical and other civilian pacification projects. These forces operated under the designation PHLCAG-V or Philippine Civic Action Group-Vietnam. More noteworthy was the fact that the naval base in Subic Bay was used for the U.S...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
154
80,936
81,539
dev-2783-155
Since November 1967, Taiwan secretly operated a cargo transport detachment to assist the United States and South Vietnam. Taiwan also provided military training units for the South Vietnamese diving units, later known as the Lien Doi Nguoi Nhai (LDMN) or "Frogman unit" in English.[16] Military commandos from Taiwan wer...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
155
81,540
81,949
dev-2783-156
The Brazilian government of President Castelo Branco officially supported the United States's position in South Vietnam and contributed a medical team and supplies to the country—the only Latin American country to do so[17]
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Vietnam War
156
81,950
82,175
dev-2783-157
Canada, India and Poland constituted the International Control Commission, which was supposed to monitor the 1954 ceasefire agreement.[274] Officially, Canada did not have partisan involvement in the Vietnam War and diplomatically it was "non-belligerent" though there is evidence to the contrary.[275][276] The Vietnam ...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
157
82,176
82,632
dev-2783-158
The ethnic minority peoples of south Vietnam like the Christian Montagnards (Degar), Hindu and Muslim Cham and the Buddhist Khmer Krom banded together in the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races (French: Front Uni de Lutte des Races Opprimées, acronym: FULRO) to fight against the Vietnamese for autonomy ...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
158
82,633
83,186
dev-2783-159
During the war, the South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem began a program to settle ethnic Vietnamese Kinh on Montagnard lands in the Central Highlands region. This provoked a backlash from the Montagnards. The Cambodians under both the pro-China King Sihanouk and the pro-American Lon Nol supported their fellow co-e...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
159
83,187
83,585
dev-2783-160
A large number of war crimes took place during the Vietnam War. War crimes were committed by both sides during the conflict and included rape, massacres of civilians, bombings of civilian targets, terrorism, the widespread use of torture and the murder of prisoners of war. Additional common crimes included theft, arson...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
160
83,586
83,981
dev-2783-161
In 1968, the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group (VWCWG) was established by the Pentagon task force set up in the wake of the My Lai Massacre, to attempt to ascertain the veracity of emerging claims of war crimes by U.S. armed forces in Vietnam, during the Vietnam War period.
dev-2783
Vietnam War
161
83,982
84,255
dev-2783-162
Sworn statements by witnesses and status reports for top military officers indicated that 320 incidents had factual basis.[279] The substantiated cases included 7 massacres between 1967 and 1971 in which at least 137 civilians were killed; seventy eight further attacks targeting non-combatants resulting in at least 57 ...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
162
84,256
84,928
dev-2783-163
During their visits to transit detention facilities under American administration in 1968 and 1969, the International Red Cross recorded many cases of torture and inhumane treatment before the captives were handed over to South Vietnamese authorities.[281]
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Vietnam War
163
84,929
85,185
dev-2783-164
The war involved the establishment of numerous free-fire zones by U.S. forces as a tactic to prevent Viet Cong fighters from sheltering in South Vietnamese villages. Such practice, which involved the assumption that any individual appearing in the designated zones was an enemy combatant that could be freely targeted by...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
164
85,186
86,308
dev-2783-165
In terms of atrocities by the South Vietnamese, during the Diem era (1954–1963) R.J. Rummel estimated that 16,000 to 167,000 South Vietnamese civilians were killed in democide; for 1964 to 1975, Rummel estimated a total of 42,000 to 128,000 killed in democide. Thus, the total for 1954 to 1975 is from 57,000 to 284,00...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
165
86,309
87,368
dev-2783-166
Due to the particularly heavy impact of cluster bombs during this war, Laos was a strong advocate of the Convention on Cluster Munitions to ban the weapons, and was host to the First Meeting of States Parties to the convention in November 2010.[288]
dev-2783
Vietnam War
166
87,369
87,618
dev-2783-167
South Korean forces were also accused of war crimes as well. One documented event was the Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre where the 2nd Marine Brigade of the South Korean Army purportedly killed 69–79 civilians on 12 February 1968 in Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất village, Điện Bàn District of Quảng Nam Province in South V...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
167
87,619
88,086
dev-2783-168
Ami Pedahzur has written that "the overall volume and lethality of Viet Cong terrorism rivals or exceeds all but a handful of terrorist campaigns waged over the last third of the twentieth century".[290] Notable Viet Cong atrocities include the massacre of over 3,000 unarmed civilians at Huế during the Tet Offensive an...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
168
88,087
88,957
dev-2783-169
During the Vietnam War, American women served on active duty doing a variety of jobs. Early in 1963, the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) launched Operation Nightingale, an intensive effort to recruit nurses to serve in Vietnam.[294] First Lieutenant Sharon Lane was the only female military nurse to be killed by enemy gunfire du...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
169
88,958
89,504
dev-2783-170
Although a small number of women were assigned to combat zones, they were never allowed directly in the field of battle. The women who served in the military were solely volunteers. They faced a plethora of challenges, one of which was the relatively small number of female soldiers. Living in a male-dominated environme...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
170
89,505
90,422
dev-2783-171
Unlike the American women who went to Vietnam, North Vietnamese women were enlisted and fought in the combat zone as well as providing manual labor to keep the Ho Chi Minh trail open and cook for the soldiers. They also worked in the rice fields in North Vietnam and Viet Cong-held farming areas in South Vietnam's Mekon...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
171
90,423
91,019
dev-2783-172
In South Vietnam, many women voluntarily served in the ARVN's Women's Armed Force Corps (WAFC) and various other Women's corps in the military. Some, like in the WAFC, fought in combat with other soldiers. Others served as nurses and doctors in the battlefield and in military hospitals, or served in South Vietnam or Am...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
172
91,020
91,443
dev-2783-173
The war saw more than one million rural people migrate or flee the fighting in the South Vietnamese countryside to the cities, especially Saigon. Among the internal refugees were many young women who became the ubiquitous "bargirls" of wartime South Vietnam "hawking her wares—be that cigarettes, liquor, or herself" t...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
173
91,444
91,854
dev-2783-174
8,040 Vietnamese women came to the United States as war brides between 1964 and 1975.[304] Many mixed-blood Amerasian children were left behind when their American fathers returned to the United States after their tour of duty in South Vietnam. 26,000 of them were permitted to immigrate to the United States in the 1980...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
174
91,855
92,192
dev-2783-175
The experience of American military personnel of African origin during the Vietnam War had received significant attention. For example, the website "African-American Involvement in the Vietnam War" compiles examples of such coverage,[306] as does the print and broadcast work of journalist Wallace Terry.
dev-2783
Vietnam War
175
92,193
92,497
dev-2783-176
Terry's book Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans (1984), includes observations about the impact of the war on the black community in general and on black servicemen specifically. Points he makes on the latter topic include: the higher proportion of combat casualties in Vietnam among African Ame...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
176
92,498
93,548
dev-2783-177
During the early stages of their insurgency, the Viet Cong mainly sustained itself with captured arms (often of American manufacture)[309] or crude, self-made weapons (e.g. copies of the US Thompson submachine gun[310] and shotguns made of galvanized pipes).[311] Most arms were captured from poorly defended ARVN militi...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
177
93,549
93,885
dev-2783-178
In the summer and fall of 1967, all Viet Cong battalions were reequipped with arms of Soviet design such as the AK-47 assault rifle and the RPG-2 anti-tank weapon.[313] Their weapons were principally of Chinese[314] or Soviet manufacture.[315]
dev-2783
Vietnam War
178
93,886
94,129
dev-2783-179
While the Viet Cong had both amphibious tanks (such as the PT-76) and light tanks (such as the Type 62), they also used bicycles to transport munitions. The US' heavily armored, 90 mm M48A3 Patton tank saw extensive action during the Vietnam War and over 600 were deployed with US Forces. They played an important role ...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
179
94,130
94,470
dev-2783-180
The US service rifle was initially the M14 (though some units were still using the WWII-era M1 Garand for a lack of M14s). Found to be unsuitable for jungle warfare, the M14 was replaced by M16 which was more accurate and lighter than the AK-47. For a period, the gun suffered from a jamming flaw known as "failure to ex...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
180
94,471
95,400
dev-2783-181
The M60 machine gun GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun) was the main machine gun of the US army at the time and many of them were put on helicopters, to provide suppressive fire when landing in hostile regions. The MAC-10 machine pistol was supplied to many special forces troops in the midpoint of the war. It also armed...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
181
95,401
95,751
dev-2783-182
Two aircraft which were prominent in the war were the AC-130 "Spectre" Gunship and the UH-1 "Huey" gunship. The AC-130 was a heavily armed ground-attack aircraft variant of the C-130 Hercules transport plane; it was used to provide close air support, air interdiction and force protection. The AC-130H "Spectre" was arme...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
182
95,752
96,343
dev-2783-183
The Claymore M18A1, an anti-personnel mine, was widely used during the war. Unlike a conventional land mine, the Claymore is command-detonated and directional, meaning it is fired by remote-control and shoots a pattern of 700 one-eighth-inch steel balls into the kill zone like a shotgun.
dev-2783
Vietnam War
183
96,344
96,632
dev-2783-184
The aircraft ordnance used during the war included precision-guided munition, cluster bombs, and napalm, a thickening/gelling agent generally mixed with petroleum or a similar fuel for use in an incendiary device, initially against buildings and later primarily as an anti-personnel weapon that sticks to skin and can bu...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
184
96,633
96,977
dev-2783-185
The Vietnam War was the first conflict where U.S. forces had secure voice communication equipment available at the tactical level. The National Security Agency ran a crash program to provide U.S. forces with a family of security equipment code named NESTOR, fielding 17,000 units initially. Eventually 30,000 units were ...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
185
96,978
97,840
dev-2783-186
The U.S. dropped over 7 million tons of bombs on Indochina during the war—more than triple the 2.1 million tons of bombs the U.S. dropped on Europe and Asia during all of World War II, and more than ten times the amount dropped by the U.S. during the Korean War. 500 thousand tons were dropped on Cambodia, 1 million t...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
186
97,841
98,818
dev-2783-187
After the conflict officially ended in April 30th, 1975 with the fall of Saigon, government officials were sent from the North to take over the old regime. However, without financial support from the US to the South, and the North already received heavy lost after the war, the newly united Vietnam was in serious condit...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
187
98,819
99,772
dev-2783-188
On 2 July 1976, North and South Vietnam were merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.[323] Despite speculation that the victorious North Vietnamese would, in President Nixon's words, "massacre the civilians there [South Vietnam] by the millions," there is a widespread consensus that no mass executions in fact ...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
188
99,773
100,958
dev-2783-189
By 1975, the Viet Minh had lost influence over the Cambodian communists.[327] Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, fell to the Khmer Rouge on 17 April 1975. Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge would eventually kill 1–3 million Cambodians out of a population of around 8 million, in one of the bloodiest ge...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
189
100,959
101,317
dev-2783-190
The relationship between Vietnam and Cambodia, then ruled by the Khmer Rouge communist party, escalated right after the end of the war, April 1975. In respond to the Khmer Rouge taking over Phu Quoc on 17th April and Tho Chu on 4th May of 1975, and was thought to be responsible for the disappear of 500 Vietnamese nativ...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
190
101,318
102,150
dev-2783-191
The Pathet Lao overthrew the monarchy of Laos in December 1975, establishing the Lao People's Democratic Republic under the leadership of a member of the royal family, Souphanouvong. The change in regime was "quite peaceful, a sort of Asiatic'velvet revolution'"—although 30,000 former officials were sent to reeducati...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
191
102,151
102,620
dev-2783-192
The millions of cluster bombs the US dropped on southeast Asia rendered the landscape hazardous. In Laos alone, some 80 million bombs failed to explode and remain scattered throughout the country, rendering vast swathes of land impossible to cultivate and killing or maiming 50 Laotians every year.[333]There was a total...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
192
102,621
103,290
dev-2783-193
Over 3 million people left Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in the Indochina refugee crisis. Most Asian countries were unwilling to accept these refugees, many of whom fled by boat and were known as boat people.[335] Between 1975 and 1998, an estimated 1.2 million refugees from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries re...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
193
103,291
104,040
dev-2783-194
Agent Orange and similar chemical substances used by the U.S. have also caused a considerable number of deaths and injuries in the intervening years, including among the US Air Force crew which handled them. Scientific reports have concluded that refugees exposed to chemical sprays while in South Vietnam continued to e...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
194
104,041
105,293
dev-2783-195
In the post-war era, Americans struggled to absorb the lessons of the military intervention.[343] As General Maxwell Taylor, one of the principal architects of the war, noted, "First, we didn't know ourselves. We thought that we were going into another Korean War, but this was a different country. Secondly, we didn't k...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
195
105,294
106,159
dev-2783-196
Some have suggested that "the responsibility for the ultimate failure of this policy [America's withdrawal from Vietnam] lies not with the men who fought, but with those in Congress…"[346] Alternatively, the official history of the United States Army noted that "tactics have often seemed to exist apart from larger issu...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
196
106,160
107,068
dev-2783-197
U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in a secret memo to President Gerald Ford that "in terms of military tactics, we cannot help draw the conclusion that our armed forces are not suited to this kind of war. Even the Special Forces who had been designed for it could not prevail."[347] Secretary of Defense Robe...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
197
107,069
107,519
dev-2783-198
Doubts surfaced as to the effectiveness of large-scale, sustained bombing. As Army Chief of Staff Harold Keith Johnson noted, "if anything came out of Vietnam, it was that air power couldn't do the job."[349] Even General William Westmoreland admitted that the bombing had been ineffective. As he remarked, "I still doub...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
198
107,520
107,894
dev-2783-199
The inability to bring Hanoi to the bargaining table by bombing also illustrated another U.S. miscalculation. The North's leadership was composed of hardened communists who had been fighting for thirty years. They had defeated the French, and their tenacity as both nationalists and communists was formidable. Ho Chi Min...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
199
107,895
108,356
dev-2783-200
The Vietnam War called into question the U.S. Army doctrine. Marine Corps General Victor H. Krulak heavily criticised Westmoreland's attrition strategy, calling it "wasteful of American lives… with small likelihood of a successful outcome."[349] In addition, doubts surfaced about the ability of the military to train ...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
200
108,357
108,692
dev-2783-201
Between 1953 and 1975, the United States spent $168 billion on the war ($1.02 trillion in FY2015 dollars).[351][not in citation given] This resulted in a large federal budget deficit.
dev-2783
Vietnam War
201
108,693
108,876
dev-2783-202
More than 3 million Americans served in the Vietnam War, some 1.5 million of whom actually saw combat in Vietnam.[352] James E. Westheider wrote that "At the height of American involvement in 1968, for example, there were 543,000 American military personnel in Vietnam, but only 80,000 were considered combat troops."[35...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
202
108,877
109,309
dev-2783-203
By war's end, 58,220 American soldiers had been killed,[A 2] more than 150,000 had been wounded, and at least 21,000 had been permanently disabled.[354] The average age of the U.S. troops killed in Vietnam was 23.11 years.[355] According to Dale Kueter, "Of those killed in combat, 86.3 percent were white, 12.5 percent ...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
203
109,310
110,403
dev-2783-204
As of 2013, the U.S. government is paying Vietnam veterans and their families or survivors more than $22 billion a year in war-related claims.[361][362]
dev-2783
Vietnam War
204
110,404
110,556
dev-2783-205
As the Vietnam War continued inconclusively and became more unpopular with the American public, morale declined and disciplinary problems grew among American enlisted men and junior, non-career officers. Drug use, racial tensions, and the growing incidence of fragging—attempting to kill unpopular officers and non-commi...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
205
110,557
111,758
dev-2783-206
Ron Milam has questioned the severity of the "breakdown" of the U.S. armed forces, especially among combat troops, as reflecting the opinions of "angry colonels" who deplored the erosion of traditional military values during the Vietnam War.[365] Although acknowledging serious problems, he questions the alleged "near m...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
206
111,759
112,521
dev-2783-207
The morale and discipline problems and resistance to conscription (the draft) were important factors leading to the creation of an all-volunteer military force by the United States and the termination of conscription. The last conscript was inducted into the army in 1973.[367][368] The all-volunteer military moderated ...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
207
112,522
112,942
dev-2783-208
One of the most controversial aspects of the U.S. military effort in Southeast Asia was the widespread use of chemical defoliants between 1961 and 1971. They were used to defoliate large parts of the countryside to prevent the Viet Cong from being able to hide their weapons and encampments under the foliage. These chem...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
208
112,943
113,373
dev-2783-209
Early in the American military effort, it was decided that since the enemy were hiding their activities under triple-canopy jungle, a useful first step might be to defoliate certain areas. This was especially true of growth surrounding bases (both large and small) in what became known as Operation Ranch Hand. Corporati...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
209
113,374
114,540
dev-2783-210
The defoliants, which were distributed in drums marked with color-coded bands, included the "Rainbow Herbicides"—Agent Pink, Agent Green, Agent Purple, Agent Blue, Agent White, and, most famously, Agent Orange, which included dioxin as a by-product of its manufacture. About 11–12 million gallons (41.6–45.4 million L) o...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
210
114,541
115,102
dev-2783-211
In 1961 and 1962, the Kennedy administration authorized the use of chemicals to destroy rice crops. Between 1961 and 1967, the U.S. Air Force sprayed 20 million U.S. gallons (75,700,000 L) of concentrated herbicides over 6 million acres (24,000 km2) of crops and trees, affecting an estimated 13% of South Vietnam's land...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
211
115,103
115,582
dev-2783-212
Vietnamese victims affected by Agent Orange attempted a class action lawsuit against Dow Chemical and other US chemical manufacturers, but District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein dismissed their case.[376] They appealed, but the dismissal was cemented in February 2008 by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.[377]...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
212
115,583
116,291
dev-2783-213
The U.S. Veterans Administration has listed prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple myeloma, Diabetes mellitus type 2, B-cell lymphomas, soft-tissue sarcoma, chloracne, porphyria cutanea tarda, peripheral neuropathy, and spina bifida in children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange.[379]
dev-2783
Vietnam War
213
116,292
116,586
dev-2783-214
Estimates of the number of casualties vary, with one source suggesting up to 3.8 million violent war deaths in Vietnam for the period 1955 to 2002.[382] Between 195,000 and 430,000 South Vietnamese civilians died in the war.[35][41] Extrapolating from a 1969 US intelligence report, Guenter Lewy estimated 65,000 North V...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
214
116,587
118,669
dev-2783-215
Between 240,000[61][62] and 300,000[60] Cambodians died during the war. 20,000–62,000 Laotians also died,[59] and 58,222 U.S. military personnel were killed, of which 1,596 are still listed as missing as of 2015[update].[391]
dev-2783
Vietnam War
215
118,670
118,897
dev-2783-216
Unexploded ordnance, mostly from U.S. bombing, continue to detonate and kill people today. According to the Vietnamese government, ordnance has killed some 42,000 people since the war officially ended.[392][393] According to the government of Laos, unexploded ordnance has killed or injured over 20,000 Laotians since th...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
216
118,898
119,240
dev-2783-217
The Vietnam War has been featured extensively in television, film, video games, and literature in the participant countries. In American popular culture, the "Crazy Vietnam Veteran", who was suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, became a common stock character after the war.
dev-2783
Vietnam War
217
119,241
119,524
dev-2783-218
One of the first major films based on the Vietnam War was John Wayne's pro-war film, The Green Berets (1968). Further cinematic representations were released during the 1970s and 1980s, including Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978), Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979), Oliver Stone's Platoon (1986) – based...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
218
119,525
120,080
dev-2783-219
The war also influenced a generation of musicians and songwriters in Vietnam and the United States, both anti-war and pro/anti-communist. The band Country Joe and the Fish recorded "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag" / The "Fish" Cheer in 1965, and it became one of the most influential anti-Vietnam protest anthems.[44]...
dev-2783
Vietnam War
219
120,081
120,651
dev-2783-220
On May 25, 2012, President Barack Obama issued a proclamation of the commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War.[394][395] On November 10, 2017, President Donald Trump issued a proclamation commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War.[396][397][398][399]
dev-2783
Vietnam War
220
120,652
120,930
dev-6923-0
The Confederate States of America (CSA or C.S.), commonly referred to as the Confederacy, was an unrecognized country in North America that existed from 1861 to 1865. The Confederacy was originally formed by seven secessionist slave-holding states – South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and...
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
0
0
542
dev-6923-1
Each state declared its secession from the United States following the November 1860 election of Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln to the U.S. presidency on a platform which opposed the expansion of slavery into the western territories. Before Lincoln took office in March, a new Confederate government was establishe...
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
1
543
1,550
dev-6923-2
The government of the United States (the Union) rejected the claims of secession and considered the Confederacy illegitimate. The War began with the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, a Union fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. No foreign government officially recognized the Confederac...
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
2
1,551
2,552
dev-6923-3
On March 11, 1861, the Confederate Constitution of seven state signatories – South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas – replaced the February 7 Provisional Confederate States Constitution with one stating in its preamble a desire for a "permanent federal government". Four additional ...
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
3
2,553
3,836
dev-6923-4
Confederate control over its claimed territory and population in congressional districts steadily shrank from 73% to 34% during the course of the Civil War due to the Union's successful overland campaigns, its control of the inland waterways into the South, and its blockade of the southern coast.[8] With the Emancipati...
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
4
3,837
4,790
dev-6923-5
These losses created an insurmountable disadvantage in men, materiel, and finance. Public support for Confederate President Jefferson Davis's administration eroded over time due to repeated military reverses, economic hardships, and allegations of autocratic government. After four years of campaigning, Richmond was cap...
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
5
4,791
5,407
dev-6923-6
The U.S. government began a decade-long process known as Reconstruction which attempted to resolve the political and constitutional issues of the Civil War. The priorities were: to guarantee that Confederate nationalism and slavery were ended, to ratify and enforce the Thirteenth Amendment which outlawed slavery; the F...
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
6
5,408
5,924
dev-6923-7
By 1877, the Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction in the former Confederate states. Federal troops were withdrawn from the South, where conservative white Southern Democrats had already regained political control of state governments, often through extreme violence and fraud to suppress black voting. Confederate vet...
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
7
5,925
7,216
dev-6923-8
The Confederacy was established in the Montgomery Convention in February 1861 (before Lincoln's inauguration in March) and was disintegrated in April and May 1865. It was formed by delegations from seven Southern slave states that had proclaimed their secession from the Union. After the fighting began in April, four ad...
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
8
7,217
7,798
dev-6923-9
Many southern whites had considered themselves more Southern than American[13][14] and were prepared to fight for their state and their region to be independent of the larger nation. That regionalism became a Southern nationalism, or the "Cause". For the duration of its existence, the Confederacy underwent trial by war...
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
9
7,799
9,019
dev-6923-10
Southern Democrats chose John Breckinridge as their candidate during the presidential election of 1860, but in no Southern state (other than South Carolina, where the legislature chose the electors) was support for him unanimous; all of the other states recorded at least some popular votes for one or more of the other ...
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
10
9,020
9,738
dev-6923-11
Following South Carolina's unanimous 1860 secession vote, no other Southern states considered the question until 1861, and when they did none had a unanimous vote. All had residents who cast significant numbers of Unionist votes in either the legislature, conventions, popular referendums, or in all three. Voting to rem...
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
11
9,739
10,316
dev-6923-12
The American Civil War became an American tragedy, what some scholars termed the "Brothers' War", pitting "brother against brother, father against son, kith against kin of every degree".[21][22]
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
12
10,317
10,511
dev-6923-13
According to historian Avery O. Craven in 1950, the Confederate States of America was created by secessionists in Southern slave states who believed that the federal government was making them second-class citizens and refused to honor their belief that slavery was beneficial to the Negro.[23] They judged the agent of ...
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
13
10,512
11,275
dev-6923-14
During the campaign for president in 1860, some secessionists threatened disunion should Lincoln (who opposed the expansion of slavery into the territories) be elected, most notably William L. Yancey. Yancey toured the North calling for secession as Stephen A. Douglas toured the South calling for union in the event of ...
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
14
11,276
11,933
dev-6923-15
The immediate catalyst for secession was the victory of the Republican Party and the election of Abraham Lincoln as president in the 1860 elections. American Civil War historian James M. McPherson suggested that, for the Southerners, the most ominous feature of the Republican victories in the Congressional and Presiden...
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
15
11,934
12,843
dev-6923-16
By 1860, sectional disagreements between North and South relate primarily to the maintenance or expansion of slavery in the United States. Historian Drew Gilpin Faust observed that "leaders of the secession movement across the South cited slavery as the most compelling reason for southern independence".[27] Although mo...
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
16
12,844
13,568
dev-6923-17
Historian Emory Thomas assessed the Confederacy's self-image by studying the correspondence sent by the Confederate government in 1861–62 to foreign governments. He found that Confederate diplomacy projected multiple contradictory self-images:
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
17
13,569
13,814
dev-6923-18
The Southern nation was by turns a guileless people attacked by a voracious neighbor, an 'established' nation in some temporary difficulty, a collection of bucolic aristocrats making a romantic stand against the banalities of industrial democracy, a cabal of commercial farmers seeking to make a pawn of King Cotton, an ...
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
18
13,815
14,272
dev-6923-19
In what later became known as the Cornerstone Speech, C.S. Vice President Alexander H. Stephens declared that the "cornerstone" of the new government "rest[ed] upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery – subordination to the superior race – is his natural and normal condition. This...
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
19
14,273
14,953
dev-6923-20
Four of the seceding states, the Deep South states of South Carolina,[33] Mississippi,[34] Georgia,[35] and Texas,[36] issued formal declarations of causes, each of which identified the threat to slaveholders' rights as the cause of, or a major cause of, secession. Georgia also claimed a general Federal policy of favor...
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
20
14,954
16,002
dev-6923-21
Alabama did not provide a separate declaration of causes. Instead the Alabama ordinance stated "the election of Abraham Lincoln...by a sectional party, avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions and to the peace and security of the people of the State of Alabama, preceded by many and dangerous infractions of the Con...
dev-6923
Confederate States of America
21
16,003
16,902