The largest ever helicopter evacuation lasted for 19 hours and involved 81 helicopters shuttling the evacuees to US Navy ships moored in the South China Sea.

On the 2nd March 1965 the United States military, alongside the Republic of Vietnam Air Force, began Operation Rolling Thunder as part of the Vietnam War.

On the 7th January 1979 Pol Pot, the Cambodian revolutionary and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, was overthrown when Vietnamese forces captured the capital city Phnom Penh.