1968 In a large military strike known as the Tet Offensive, the Viet Cong retook many of
the cities that had been under U.S. occupation, even pushing so far as to get troops
inside the grounds of the American embassy in Saigon. While the Viet Cong
sustained heavy losses, the offensive exposed the weakness of the U.S. and South
Vietnamese forces, shifting U.S. public opinion and precipitating the U.S. seriously to
consider withdrawing their forces from Vietnam.
1969 Ho Chi Minh died on September 2 at the age of seventy-nine.