The United States gradually got more and more involved in the Vietnamese conflict following the end of French colonial rule in the mid-1950s. The American government had provided money, weapons and supplies to the French army in its conflict with the communist guerrillas of the Viet Minh. In the Geneva conference that ended the colonial war, the USA also played an important role in the diplomatic agreements that were adopted there.
In the 1960s, American advisors and were sent to train and advise the South Vietnamese army, which was also provided with supplies and weapons. There was not a massive military presence. In 1964, North Vietnamese boats attacked an American warship in the polemic incident of the Gulf of Tonkin; president Lyndon B. Johnson asked Congress for special powers and got them. With this authorization, Johnson escalated US military involvement in Vietnam to fight the communist Viet Cong guerrillas and the North Vietnamese army in South Vietnam. In 1965, more than half a million US troops were deployed in the Southeast Asian nation to fight against communist forces.
Italy was not a unified nation in the 1500's but a series of regions and city-states which shared the same peninsula in the Mediterranean Sea. The power/domination of the Church of Rome had lost influenc.
