Special Report

The Vietnam War Was the Bloodiest War of the 1960s

Patrick Christain / Hulton Archive via Getty Images

This article was written with the assistance of A.I. technology, and has been edited and fact-checked by Colman Andrews.

The Vietnam War was the deadliest war of the 1960s, extending into the ‘70s, according to the PRIO Battledeaths Dataset, produced by the Peace Research Institute Oslo, an independent conflict research and policy institute. An estimated 1,461,050 people were killed in the conflict, which lasted from 1965 to 1975. The majority of the casualties were civilians.

The war was fought between the communist North Vietnam, supported by the Soviet Union and China, and the non-communist South Vietnam, supported by the United States. It began as a civil war between the two Vietnamese factions, but the United States became involved in an attempt to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam.

The war was extremely unpopular in the United States, and led to large anti-war protests. It also had a devastating effect on Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Millions of people were killed, wounded, or made homeless.

The war finally ended in 1975 when North Vietnamese forces captured the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon. The United States withdrew its troops, and Vietnam was reunified under communist rule.

Click here to see the deadliest wars of the 1960s.

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