1930
Ho Chi Minh organizes the Indochinese Communist Party to oppose French colonial rule.

1932
March 9: Bao Dai, a puppet leader of the French, proclaims himself emperor of Vietnam.

1941
May: Ho Chi Minh forms the Viet Minh forces to fight the French and Japanese.

1945
July: At the Potsdam Conference, Vietnam is divided in two along the seventeenth parallel by a demilitarized zone.

September 2: Ho Chi Minh declares Vietnam's independence from the French by establishing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi.

September 26: The first American adviser is killed in Vietnam. Lieutenant Colonel A. Peter Dewey, head of the Office of Strategic Security (the precurser to the Central Intelligence Agency), is mistaken for a French officer and shot by Communist Viet Minh soldiers.

1946
December 19: The Indochina War begins when Ho's Viet Minh forces attack French forces in Hanoi.

1949
July: Bao Dai proclaims the establishment of the State of Vietnam.

1950
January 14: Ho...