Timeline of the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War

Timeline of the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War U.S. troops had been in Vietnam for three years before the Tet Offensive, and most of the fighting they had encountered were small skirmishes involving guerilla tactics. Although the U.S. had more aircraft, better weapons, and hundreds of thousands of trained soldiers, they were stuck in a stalemate against the Communist forces in North Vietnam and the guerrilla forces in South Vietnam (known as the Viet Cong). The United States was discovering that traditional warfare tactics did not necessarily work well in the jungle against the guerrilla warfare tactics they were facing. January 21, 1968 In early 1968, General Vo Nguyen Giap, the man in charge of North Vietnams army, believed it was time for the North Vietnamese to make a major surprise attack on South Vietnam. After coordinating with the Viet Cong and moving troops and supplies into position, the Communists made a diversionary attack against the American base at Khe Sanh on January 21, 1968. January 30, 1968 On January 30, 1968, the real Tet Offensive began. Early in the morning, North Vietnamese troops and Viet Cong forces attacked both towns and cities in South Vietnam, breaking the ceasefire that had been called for the Vietnamese holiday of Tet (the lunar new year). The Communists attacked around 100 major cities and towns in South Vietnam. The size and ferocity of the attack surprised both the Americans and the South Vietnamese, but they fought back. The Communists, who had hoped for an uprising from the populous in support of their actions, met heavy resistance instead. In some towns and cities, the Communists were repelled quickly, within hours. In others, it took weeks of fighting. In Saigon, the Communists succeeded in occupying the U.S. embassy, once thought impregnable, for eight hours before they were overtaken by U.S. soldiers. It took about two weeks for U.S. troops and South Vietnamese forces to regain control of Saigon; it took them nearly a month to retake the city of Hue. Conclusion In military terms, the United States was the victor of the Tet Offensive for the Communists did not succeed in maintaining control over any part of South Vietnam. The Communist forces also suffered very heavy losses (an estimated 45,000 killed). However, the Tet Offensive showed another side of the war to Americans, one which they did not like. The coordination, strength, and surprise instigated by the Communists led the U.S. to realize that their foe was much stronger than they had expected. Faced with an unhappy American public and depressing news from his military leaders, President Lyndon B. Johnson decided to end the escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

The Inventors Behind the Creation of Television

The Inventors Behind the Creation of Television Television wasnt invented by a single person. The efforts of many people working over the years, together and separately, contributed to the evolution of the technology. At the dawn of television history, two competing experimental approaches  led to the breakthroughs that eventually made the technology possible.  Early inventors attempted to build either a mechanical television based on Paul Nipkows rotating disks or an electronic television using a  cathode ray tube  developed independently in 1907 by English inventor A.A. Campbell-Swinton and Russian scientist Boris Rosing. Because electronic television systems worked better, they eventually replaced mechanical systems. Here is an overview of the major names and milestones behind one of the most important inventions of the 20th century. Mechanical Television Pioneers German inventor  Paul Gottlieb Nipkow developed a rotating disc technology in 1884 called the Nipkow disk to transmit pictures over wires. Nipkow is credited with  discovering televisions scanning principle, in which the light intensities of small portions of an image are successively analyzed and transmitted. In the 1920s, John Logie Baird patented the idea of using arrays of transparent rods to transmit images for television. Bairds 30-line images were the first demonstrations of television by reflected light rather than back-lit silhouettes.  Baird based his technology on Nipkows scanning disc idea and other developments in electronics. Charles Francis Jenkins invented a mechanical television system called Radiovision and claimed to have transmitted the earliest moving silhouette images on June 14, 1923. His company also  opened the first television broadcasting station in the U.S., named W3XK. Electronic Television Pioneers German scientist  Karl Ferdinand Braun entered history books by inventing the cathode ray tube (CRT) in 1897. This picture tube, which for years was the only device that could create the images viewers saw, was the basis for the advent of electronic television. In 1927, American Philo Taylor Farnsworth  became  the first inventor to transmit a television image- a dollar sign- comprising 60 horizontal lines. Farnsworth also developed the dissector tube, the basis of all current electronic televisions. Russian inventor  Vladimir Kosma Zworykin invented an improved cathode ray tube called the kinescope in 1929. Zworykin was one of the first to demonstrate a system with all the features that would come to make up televisions. Additional Television Components In 1947 Louis W. Parker invented the Intercarrier Sound System to synchronize television sound. His invention is used in all television receivers in the world. In June 1956  the TV remote controller first entered the American home. The first TV remote control, called Lazy Bones, was developed in 1950 by Zenith Electronics Corp., then known as Zenith Radio Corp. Marvin Middlemark invented rabbit ears, the once-ubiquitous V-shaped TV antennae, in 1953. His other inventions included a water-powered potato peeler and a rejuvenating tennis ball machine. Plasma TV display panels use small cells containing electrically charged ionized gases to generate high-quality imagery. The first prototype for a plasma display monitor was invented in 1964 by Donald Bitzer, Gene Slottow, and Robert Willson. Other Television Advances In 1925, Russian TV pioneer Zworykin filed a patent disclosure for an all-electronic color television system. Following authorization by the FCC, a color television system began commercial broadcasting on Dec. 17, 1953, based on a system invented by RCA. TV closed captions are hidden in the television video signal, invisible without a decoder. They were first demonstrated in 1972 and debuted the following year on the Public Broadcasting Service. Television content for the World Wide Web was rolled out in 1995. Historys first TV series made available on the Internet was  the public access program Rox.