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Nixon pledges 40,000 more troops home by Christmas

The withdrawal leans harder on an ARVN still absorbing the U.S. divisions it is replacing.

By October 1970, Nixon's Vietnamization policy had already pulled thousands of troops home while South Vietnamese forces took their place. On October 12, 1970, Nixon announced that 40,000 more American troops would leave Vietnam before Christmas. The withdrawal followed earlier pullouts, including the full departure of the 3rd Marine Division the previous year, and depended on an ARVN still absorbing responsibilities from the better-equipped U.S. units it was replacing…

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More from October 12

Land ho: Columbus reaches a Caribbean island he takes for the Indies

A lookout aboard the Pinta spots the shore first, ten weeks after three ships left Spain.

Roosevelt makes it official: the Executive Mansion is now the White House

An executive order settles a name the public had already used for ninety years.

A small boat pulls alongside the USS Cole; the blast kills 17 sailors in line for lunch

Two suicide bombers detonate explosives against the destroyer's hull while it refuels in Aden harbor.

A magazine's Columbus Day promotion puts fifteen seconds of verse into classrooms nationwide.

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More from Cold War America

A tumbling satellite over Mexico snaps the first picture of Earth from orbit

One week after launch, a 64-element scanner aboard Explorer 6 built the image one spot at a time.

Nixon tells the nation he is resigning; Ford takes over at noon tomorrow

Facing certain impeachment after the smoking gun tape, Nixon becomes the first president to quit.

Reagan signs law admitting the internment camps were wrong; $20,000 to every survivor

The bill's number, H.R. 442, was chosen to honor the all-Japanese American regiment that fought in Europe while many of its soldiers' families remained in the camps.

The last American ground combat unit pulls out of South Vietnam

Air crews and advisers stay behind, but the infantry that once numbered over half a million is gone.

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