Saigon falls and the war ends

After days of fighting, Republic of Vietnam forces withdrew from Xuân Lộc. The withdrawal opened the route toward Saigon and left civilians facing the approaching final assault and evacuation.

The final campaign toward Saigon began. Vietnamese revolutionary forces coordinated military operations with political action in a bid to end the divided state and achieve reunification; civilians...

Dương Văn Minh assumed the presidency as the Republic of Vietnam faced imminent defeat. He later called for a ceasefire and surrender, seeking to prevent further destruction in the capital.

U.S. helicopters began evacuating embassy personnel and selected Vietnamese and foreign nationals as North Vietnamese forces approached. Many Vietnamese who had worked with the United States could not...

The final phase of the U.S. evacuation began as aircraft carried U.S. personnel and Vietnamese evacuees from Saigon. The evacuation foregrounded the unequal choices created by war: some had access...

People’s Army of Vietnam tanks entered the presidential palace, and President Dương Văn Minh announced surrender. In Vietnam, the date is commemorated as reunification and liberation; many former...

UNHCR records the arrival in May 1975 of the first boat carrying 47 people to Malaysia. This early flight began a prolonged regional refugee movement shaped by war’s end, state change, political...

Cambodian forces seized the U.S. merchant ship Mayaguez and its crew in the Gulf of Thailand. The U.S. military rescue operation that followed came days after Saigon’s fall and showed how conflict...

The act funded resettlement in the United States for refugees displaced from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. It created an initial legal and material response to mass displacement, while refugee...

The Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act funded the resettlement of Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Lao refugees in the United States. The law responded to displacement caused by decades of war...