Tet Offensive
- Date
- 30 January 1968
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- Southeast Asia (Vietnam)
- Era
- Contemporary
- Significance
On 30–31 January 1968, during the Vietnamese Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday, North Vietnamese forces and the Viet Cong launched a coordinated surprise assault on more than 100 cities, towns, and military installations across South Vietnam, including a raid on the US embassy in Saigon and a prolonged battle for Hue.
Militarily the offensive was costly for the communist forces, who suffered heavy losses and failed to spark the general uprising they had hoped for. Politically and psychologically, however, it was a decisive turning point: the scale of the attacks contradicted official US claims that victory was near, shocked the American public, and eroded support for the war. President Lyndon B. Johnson announced on 31 March 1968 that he would not seek re-election and moved toward negotiations. The offensive shifted US strategy from seeking outright victory to seeking a negotiated exit, accelerating the eventual American withdrawal from Vietnam.
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Empires active in 30 January 1968
- Soviet Union1922 CE – 1991 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE – 1974 CE
- Dutch Empire1581 CE – 1975 CE
Related military & conflict events
- Fall of Saigon and reunification of Vietnam30 April 1975 (reunified 1976)
- Gulf of Tonkin incident and American escalation in VietnamAugust 1964 – March 1965
- Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Accords1954
- First Indochina War and the fall of Dien Bien Phu1946–1954
- Cuban Missile Crisis16–28 October 1962
- Khmer Rouge Seize Cambodia and Declare Year Zero1975
Further reading
The wider story
A History of Southeast Asia: Critical Crossroads
Authoritative yet readable history of the whole region, mainland and maritime.
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