In 1974 the US space probe Mariner 10 becomes the first spacecraft to ‘flyby’ Mercury. The probe was launched in November 1973 and has just made it to it’s destination of Mercury, taking close up images of the planet (which is normally difficult to see in detail due to it’s proximity to the Sun). The probe had flown by Venus a few weeks before, using it’s gravity to propel the probe off to mercury. It performed three flybys of Mercury and mapped 35% of the surface in great detail and showed that it does spin on its axis (Mercury spins very slowly taking 58 earth days to rotate once. As it takes only 88 days to orbit the Sun a Mercury year consist of 1.5 mercury days)
In 1973 the United States troops leave Vietnam after the signing of the peace treaty 2 months ago. The country of Vietnam used to be a French colony known as Indo-China which in 1941 was invaded by the Japanese. A Vietnamese national, Nguyen That Thanh, had been learning about communism in Russia and when Japan invaded he returned home and created the Viet Minh, a communised based independence movement against the Japanese. Thanh changed his name to ‘Ho Chi Minh’ (meaning ‘bringer of light’) and when World War II ended Minh pronounced Vietnamese independence. France refused to acknowledge Minh’s declaration and in December 1946 war began between France and the Viet Minh. The USSR and china gave support to the Viet Minh and the United States supported France in another front to the Cold War. In 1954 a peace treaty was signed that ended the war and split the country with the north controlled by Communist Minh and the French controlled south. In the 1960’s a North Vietnamese guerrilla force named the Vietcong began attacks on the southern government and fighting began once more. In 1961 the United States sent troops in to protect the south from communist forces in the north. The ferocity of the fighting increased as the war continued with huge losses on both sides. After the news broke of a massacre by American troops at the South Vietnamese village of My Lai were they opened fire on 500 civilians (mainly women and children) on the 16th of March 1968 American popularity was lost. And with the increasing number of casualties including American soldiers support for the war by American civilians was decreasing. In January 1973 representatives from the US, North and South Vietnam met to sign a cease fire. On this day the last of the US troops left Vietnam and within a year War broke out again between Northern and Southern forces. On the 30th of April 1975 North Vietnam accepted the surrender of the south and Vietnam became a communist nation. Since the French treaty in 1954 an estimated 4 million civilians died on both sides with another 1.1 million Communist fighters, 250,000 Southern Vietnamese fighters and 58,200 American troops died.
