In Photos: Documenting 30 April 1975
The historic moment when North Vietnam’s military tank entered the Presidential Palace of the Republic of Vietnam on 30 April 1975. | Source: Vietnam News Agency
April 30, 1975, marked the end of the Vietnam War, as North Vietnamese forces entered Saigon and the country moved toward reunification.
In Vietnam, the date is officially commemorated as “Liberation of the South, Reunification Day” (Giải phóng Miền Nam, thống nhất đất nước). But beyond its political meaning, April 30 is also remembered through moments of urgency and transition.
Let’s revisit those events through archival images, tracing the final day and its immediate aftermath, from the last evacuations to the first moments of a newly unified Vietnam.
The term Vietnam War is the common English name for the conflict, but in Vietnam it is known as the American War (or Resistance War against America), reflecting the Vietnamese perspective of the war as a struggle for national liberation against American intervention.