1 THE VIETNAM WAR ISN'T CALLED THAT IN VIETNAM
The name itself shows a non-native understanding of the conflict. Instead, the two decades of fighting in Vietnam, from 1954 to 1975, are called “the American War”. The Vietnamese made the assumption that the foreign forces who fought in that war were all Americans, but they were not: large numbers of Thais, South Koreans and Australians, to name but a few, fought on the side of South Vietnam.
2 THE CONFLICT HAD ROOTS IN 19TH-CENTURY FRENCH IMPERIALISM
In 1858, Tourane (modern Da Nang) was attacked and captured by the French admiral Charles Rigault de Genouilly. After leaving a small garrison in place to hold the city, he then journeyed south and captured Saigon (today's Ho Chi Minh City) in early 1859.
This started a century of French occupation, and most of the southeast Asian peninsula (including Vietnam) was renamed
