CHRONOLOGY

1945 - Japanese take control of French Indochina during World War II; Vietnamese Emperor Bao Dai declares ‘independent’ Vietnam under Japanese supervison; President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies, Harry Truman becomes President; at Potsdam Conference Britain, U.S., & Soviet Union split postwar control of Vietnam between China (North) and Britain (South); Japan surrenders to Allies after U.S. drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, gives up control of Vietnam to Vietminh (Vietnamese liberation front formed by Ho Chi Minh in1941); Ho Chi Minh declares Vietnamese independence from French empire, provoking Britain to send troops into Vietnam to restore French authority; Lt. Col. Peter Dewey is mistakenly killed by anti-French partisans near Saigon, the first American to die in Vietnam;