In Photos: September 2, 1945, When Vietnam Declared Independence
Source: Collected
September 2, 1945, marked the declaration of Vietnam’s independence, as Hồ Chí Minh read the Declaration of Independence before a crowd gathered at Ba Đình Square in Hanoi.
In Vietnam, the date is officially commemorated as National Day (Quốc khánh). But the story of that day stretches far beyond Hanoi. In the days leading up to September 2, the August Revolution had already brought revolutionary forces to power across the country.
Let’s revisit those moments through archival images, tracing the road to September 2 and its aftermath, from the August Revolution and the declaration in Ba Đình to Cần Thơ, where French forces returned just weeks later. Even as war resumed, the meaning of September 2 endured, with Vietnamese continuing to mark the day through the years that followed.