Silversea Hanoi History Cruise Port Guide | Silversea Cruises

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History Summarized FROM Lonely Planet :

archaeological evidence. The site of present-day Hanoi has been populated

for at least 10,000 years. These first inhabitants formed a feudally

organized society that first relied on hunting, fishing and gathering, later

developing animal husbandry and agriculture. These tribes developed in

relative isolation until about 2000 years ago.

the fall of the Tang Dynasty in China, revolutionary leader Ngo Quyen, in

938, gave the Chinese a sound whipping and established an independent

Vietnamese state, but after his death the region fell into anarchy. In 980,

Vietnam became a semi-independent client state of China, maintaining near

autonomy for the cost of a biannual tribute to China.

400 years, the site of present-day Hanoi served as the administrative seat

for all of Vietnam. The Grand Royal enclosure, now the city's Old Quarter,

was constructed and the nation's first university, the Temple of Literature,

was founded during the first century of home rule. Attacks by the Khmers,

Chinese and even Kublai Khan were repelled by national forces. All this was

done with little Chinese interference.

The Chinese never forgot their plum province, however, and in 1400 they

again captured Hanoi. National hero Le Loi's guerrilla tactics and peasants'

support eventually reclaimed Vietnamese Independence. A period of

nationalism and renewed interest in Confucianism followed, a reaction to

increased discontent with Europeans, their values and their missionaries.

missionaries didn't take the hint, however, and in 1858 several were killed.

The French had an excuse to invade, and by 1867 south Vietnam was a French

colony. Hanoi was captured in 1874. The impotent imperial court was allowed

to remain, indulging itself in various coups and capers, but the French

controlled the nation.

At the end of World War I, Young Nguyen Tat Thanh, better known by his alias

Ho Chi Minh, tried to present a plan for an independent Vietnam to US

president Woodrow Wilson at the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference. His

When France fell to Nazi Germany in 1940, the Vichy government allowed the

Japanese to put troops in Vietnam. The United States knew Frough not to

count on any French resistance, instead opting to pump arms and funding into

the communist-dominated Viet Minh forces, led by Ho Chi Minh. After the

bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Ho called for a general uprising known as

the August Revolution, and on September 2, 1945, Ho and his National

Liberation Committee (with US officials at his side) declared the Democratic

Republic of Vietnam independent at a rally in Ba Dinh Square.

fought the Viet Minh for eight years, but on May 7, 1954, the French

surrendered North Vietnam to the Viet Minh. Fiercely anti-communist leader

Ngo Dinh Diem was elected president of South Vietnam.

least as early as 1959, the North Vietnamese began helping elements in South

Vietnam that supported opposed the Diem government and supported unifying

the country under North Vietnamese leadership. These South Vietnamese

elements were known as the Viet Cong. In 1961, under President John F.

Kennedy, the United States introduced 2,000 military advisors to help stop

the slippage of control in the South by the Diem-led government.