A cease-fire goes into effect at 8 a.m., Saigon time (midnight on January 27, Greenwich Mean Time). When the cease-fire went into effect, Saigon controlled about 75 percent of South Vietnam’s territory and 85 percent of the population. The South Vietnamese Army was well equipped via last-minute deliveries of U.S. weapons and continued to receive […]
Paris Peace Accords Signed
The United States, South Vietnam, Viet Cong, and North Vietnam formally sign “An Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam” in Paris. Due to South Vietnam’s unwillingness to recognize the Viet Cong’s Provisional Revolutionary Government, all references to it were confined to a two-party version of the document signed by North Vietnam and […]
U.S. Officially Ends Participation In A Cold War Conflict
The Paris Peace Accords are signed by officials from the United States and North Vietnam, bringing an official end to America’s participation in its most unpopular foreign war. The accords did little, however, to solve the turmoil in Vietnam or to heal the terrible domestic divisions in the United States brought on by its involvement […]
Truce Is Expected In Laos And Cambodia
National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger announces that a truce is expected in Laos and Cambodia. Kissinger had been meeting privately with Le Duc Tho and other North Vietnamese and Viet Cong representatives in Paris since early January. They had worked out a peace agreement that was initialled in Paris on January 23 “to end the […]
Nixon Announces Peace Settlement Reached In Paris
President Nixon announces that Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, the chief North Vietnamese negotiator, have initialled a peace agreement in Paris “to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.” Kissinger and Tho had been conducting secret negotiations since 1969. After the South Vietnamese had blunted the massive North […]
Foreman Beats Frazier To Win Heavyweight Title In Jamaica
On January 22, 1973, in Kingston, Jamaica, the 24-year-old George Foreman pulls off a stunning upset, defeating reigning champion Joe Frazier in four minutes and 35 seconds to win the heavyweight championship of the world. At 6’3″ and 217 1/2 pounds, four inches taller and 3 1/2 pounds heavier than Frazier, “Big George” was the […]
Lyndon Baines Johnson Dies In Texas
On this day in 1973, former President Lyndon Baines Johnson dies in Johnson City, Texas, at the age of 64. After leaving the White House in 1968, L.B.J. returned to his beloved home state, Texas, with his wife, Ladybird, and immersed himself in the activity dearest to him: ranching. Although ostensibly retired, L.B.J. kept up […]
Supreme Court Legalizes Abortion
In a historic decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rules in Roe v. Wade that women, as part of their constitutional right to privacy, can terminate a pregnancy during its first two trimesters. Only during the last trimester, when the fetus can survive outside the womb, would states be permitted to regulate abortion of a healthy […]