A brand new page on DocsTeach.org, the online tool for teaching with documents from the National Archives, includes primary sources and activities for teaching about the Vietnam War.
More than 50 years after the United States committed combat troops to the war in Vietnam, and more than 40 years since the war ended, the complexity of the conflict is still being unraveled. Historical records preserved at the National Archives provide insight into this critical period.
On the new DocsTeach Vietnam War page, you can find primary sources and document-based teaching activities related to the war and U.S. involvement.
Explore Primary Sources
- Photographs of the War
- U.S. Troops in the War
- French Colonialism & Vietnam’s Desire for Independence
- The Domino Theory
- Propaganda
- The Diem Administration
- The South Vietnamese Army and American Advisers
- Escalation of the War & the Gulf of Tonkin Incident
- Public Opinion & the Anti-war Movement
- Cambodia & the Ho Chi Minh Trail
- Tet Offensive
- Negotiation, Peace Agreement & Withdrawal
- Prisoners of War
- Fall of Saigon & Evacuation
- Refugees
- Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Teach with Online Activities
- Introduction to the Domino Theory and Containment Policy in Vietnam
- The War in Vietnam – A Story in Photographs
- Analyzing the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
- Lowering the Voting Age: Nixon and the 26th Amendment
- And other activities related to to the 1960s-1970s
Many of the documents, photographs, and other sources on the DocsTeach Vietnam War page are featured in the new exhibition, Remembering Vietnam: Twelve Critical Episodes in the Vietnam War.
The exhibition, which opens this Friday, November 10, at the National Archives Museum in Washington, DC, presents both iconic and recently discovered National Archives records related to 12 critical episodes in the Vietnam War. They trace the policies and decisions made by the architects of the conflict and help untangle why the United States became involved in Vietnam, why it went on so long, and why it was so divisive for American society. DocsTeach also pulls photographs from the related traveling exhibit Picturing Nam: U.S. Military Photography of the Vietnam War.
You can also explore Vietnam War Topics, an interactive timeline, and more resources related to the Vietnam War on our new Vietnam War research page.
Remembering Vietnam was created by staff at the National Archives and is presented in part by the Lawrence F. O’Brien Family, Pritzker Military Museum & Library, AARP, and the National Archives Foundation.
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