Forces led by Nguyễn Trung Trực, an anti-colonial guerrilla leader in southern Vietnam, sink the French lorcha L'Esperance.
Vietnam (Vietnamese: Vit Nam, [vt nm] (listen)), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of 311,699 square kilometres (120,348 sq mi) and population of 96 million, making it the world's fifteenth-most populous country. Vietnam borders China to the north, Laos and Cambodia to the west, and shares maritime borders with Thailand through the Gulf of Thailand, and the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia through the South China Sea. Its capital is Hanoi and largest city Ho Chi Minh City.Vietnam was inhabited by the Paleolithic age, with states established in the first millennium BC on the Red River Delta in modern-day northern Vietnam. The Han dynasty annexed Northern and Central Vietnam under Chinese rule from 111 BC, until the first dynasty emerged in 939. Successive monarchical dynasties absorbed Chinese influences through Confucianism and Buddhism, and expanded southward to the Mekong Delta, conquering Champa. The Nguynthe last imperial dynastyfell to French colonisation in 1887. Following the August Revolution, the nationalist Viet Minh under the leadership of communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh proclaimed independence from France in 1945.
Vietnam went through prolonged warfare in the 20th century. After World War II, France returned to reclaim colonial power in the First Indochina War, from which Vietnam emerged victorious in 1954. The Vietnam War began shortly after, during which the nation was divided into communist North supported by the Soviet Union and China, and anti-communist South supported by the United States. Upon the North Vietnamese victory in 1975, Vietnam reunified as a unitary socialist state under the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) in 1976. An ineffective planned economy, a trade embargo by the West, and wars with Cambodia and China crippled the country further. In 1986, the CPV initiated economic and political reforms similar to the Chinese economic reform, transforming the country to a market-oriented economy. The reforms facilitated Vietnamese reintegration into global economy and politics.
A developing country with a lower-middle-income economy, Vietnam is one of the fastest growing economies of the 21st century, with GDP predicted to rival developed nations by 2050, despite high levels of corruption, censorship and a poor human rights record; the country ranks among the lowest in international measurements of civil liberties, freedom of the press and freedom of religion and ethnic minorities. It is part of international and intergovernmental institutions including the ASEAN, the APEC, the CPTPP, the Non-Aligned Movement, the OIF, and the WTO. It has assumed a seat on the United Nations Security Council twice.
Nguyễn Trung Trực (1838 – 27 October 1868), born Nguyễn Văn Lịch, was a Vietnamese fisherman who organized and led village militia forces which fought against French colonial forces in the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam in the 1860s. He was active in Tân An (now part of Long An Province) and Rạch Giá (now part of Kiên Giang Province) from the initial French invasion until he was captured and executed.