Japan occupied Indochina during the Second World War while French administration largely remained in place. In September 1945, following Japan's surrender, Hồ Chí Minh declared independence in Hanoi. France sought to reassert control, and the First Indochina War followed, ending with the French defeat at Điện Biên Phủ in 1954.
The 1954 Geneva Accords divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel, intended as temporary pending elections that did not take place. Roughly a million people moved from north to south in the months that followed, many of them Catholics; a smaller number moved north. Two states emerged: the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the north and the Republic of Vietnam in the south.
The conflict that followed — known in Vietnam as the Resistance War Against America and in the United States as the Vietnam War — escalated through the 1960s with large-scale American involvement, and caused immense civilian and military casualties across Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. It ended with the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, and the country was formally reunified in 1976.
This period is remembered in profoundly different ways by different Vietnamese people. Families in Vietnam, families who left in 1975, families who stayed, and families who served on different sides can describe the same events in irreconcilable terms. Historical interpretations and family memories can differ, and this course does not attempt to settle them.