May
19, 1890
Birth
of Ho Chi Minh
5
June 1911
Hồ
Chí Minh left Vietnam on a French steamer, Amiral Latouche-Tréville,
working as a kitchen helper.
1912
Again
working as the cook's helper on a ship, Hồ Chí Minh traveled to the
United States
1912
to 1913
He
lived in New York (Harlem) and Boston, where he worked as a baker at the
Parker House Hotel.
1919–1923
While
living in France, Hồ Chí Minh embraced communism, through his
friend Marcel Cachin
1921
During
the Congress of Tours, France, Nguyen Ai Quoc became a founding member of
the Parti Communiste Français (French Communist Party) and spent much of
his time in Moscow afterwards, becoming the Comintern's Asia hand and the
principal theorist on colonial warfare.
1923
Hồ
left Paris for Moscow, where he was employed by the Comintern
June
1924
Participated
in the Fifth Comintern Congress
1925-26
He
organized 'Youth Education Classes' and occasionally gave lectures at the
Whampoa Military Academy on the revolutionary movement in Indochina.
April
1927
He
left Canton again,and returned to Moscow, spending some of the summer of
1927 recuperating from tuberculosis in the Crimea, before returning to
Paris once more in November.
July
1928
He
then returned to Asia by way of Brussels, Berlin, Switzerland, Italy, from
where he took a ship to Bangkok in Thailand
1929
He
remained in Thailand, staying in the Thai village of Nachok
June 1931 he was arrested in Hong Kong and incarcerated by British police
until his release in 1933.
1938
He
returned to China and served as an adviser with Chinese Communist armed
forces.
1941
Hồ
returned to Vietnam to lead the Việt Minh independence movement.
1945
After
the August Revolution organized by the Việt Minh, Hồ became
Chairman of the Provisional Government (Premier of the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam) and issued a declaration of independence that borrowed much
from the French and American declarations.
September
2, 1945
After
Emperor Bao Dai's abdication, Hồ Chí Minh read the Declaration of
Independence of Vietnam,[14] under the name of the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam. With violence between rival Vietnamese factions and French forces
spiraling, the British commander, General Sir Douglas Gracey declared
martial law.
September
24
The
Viet Minh leaders responded with a call for a general strike.[15]
September
1945
A
force of 200,000 Chinese Nationalists arrived in Hanoi. Hồ Chí Minh
made arrangement with their general, Lu Han, to dissolve the Communist
Party and to hold an election which would yield a coalition government.
March
6, 1946
When
Chiang Kai-Shek later traded Chinese influence in Vietnam for French
concessions in Shanghai, Hồ Chí Minh had no choice but to sign an
agreement with France,in which Vietnam would be recognized as an
autonomous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union. The
agreement soon broke down.
February
1950
Hồ
met with Stalin and Mao in Moscow after the Soviet Union recognized his
government. They all agreed that China would be responsible for backing
the Viet Minh
1954
After
the important defeat of French paratroopers at the Battle of Điện
Biên Phủ, France was forced to give up its empire in Indochina.
1956
The
1954 Geneva Accords, concluded between France and the Vietminh, provided
that communist forces regroup in the North and non-communist forces
regroup in the South. Ho's Democratic Republic of Vietnam relocated to
Hanoi and became the government of North Vietnam, a Communist-led single
party state. The Geneva accords also provided for a national election to
reunify the country but this provision was rejected by South Vietnam and
the United States.
1957
Lê
Duẩn was appointed acting party boss and began sending aid to the
Vietcong insurgency in South Vietnam. This represented a loss of power by
Hồ, who is said to have preferred the more moderate Giáp for the
position.
1959
The
so called Hochiminh Trail was built, to allow aid to be sent to the
Vietcong through Laos and Cambodia, thus escalating the war.
1960
Duẩn
was named permanent party boss¸
1964
North
Vietnamese combat troops were sent southwest into neutral Laos.
September 2, 1969 With the outcome of the Vietnam War still in question,
Ho Chi Minh died on the morning of September 2, 1969, at his home in Hanoi
at age 79 from heart failure.
Hồ
Chí Minh was born, as Nguyễn Sinh Cung, in 1890 in Hoàng Trù
Village, his mother's hometown. From 1895, he grew up in his paternal
hometown of Kim Liên Village, Nam Đàn District, Nghệ An
Province, Vietnam. He had three siblings, his sister Bạch Liên (or
Nguyễn Thị Thanh), a clerk in the French Army, his brother
Nguyễn Sinh Khiêm (or Nguyễn Tất Đạt), a
geomancer and traditional herbalist, and another brother (Nguyễn
Sinh Nhuận) who died in his infancy. Following Confucian traditions,
at the age of 10 his father named him Nguyễn Tất Thành (Nguyễn
the Accomplished). Ho's father, Nguyễn Sinh Sắc, was a
Confucian scholar, small time teacher and later an imperial magistrate in
a small remote district Binh Khe (Qui Nhon). He was later sacked for
torturing a peasant to death during his drunkenness. Different to his
father, Ho were with french education, attended lycée in Huế, the
alma mater of his later disciples, Phạm Văn Đồng and Vơ
Nguyên Giáp. He later left his studies and chose to teach at Dục
Thanh school in Phan Thiết.
