America formally declares its independence, the U.S. Census is born, a president dies, JFK becomes a hero, and a young Robert Zimmerman changes his name, all on this day.
1964: In what became known as the Gulf of Tonkin incident, North Vietnamese gunboats allegedly fire on the U.S. destroyer USS Maddox in international waters. The incident led to the passage by Congress of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which granted President Lyndon B. Johnson the authority to assist any Southeast Asian country whose government was considered to be jeopardized by "communist aggression." The resolution served as Johnson's legal justification for deploying U.S. conventional forces and the commencement of open warfare against North Vietnam.
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