when did the vietnam war start and end

The Vietnam War is usually dated from November 1, 1955 to April 30, 1975.

• Many historians and reference works use November 1, 1955 as the start date, when the United States Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in Vietnam was formally established and the U.S. assumed a direct advisory role in South Vietnam’s conflict with the communist North.

• The war is widely considered to have ended on April 30, 1975 , when North Vietnamese forces entered Saigon and the South Vietnamese government surrendered, leading to the official end of the Republic of Vietnam.

Some scholars argue for slightly different “start” dates (for example, 1954 after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, or 1959 when armed communist insurgency escalated in the South), but modern timelines for the Vietnam War in an American and general-history context almost always use 1955–1975 as the standard range.