Picture of the day

The Paris Peace Accords, officially the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet Nam, was a peace agreement signed on January 27, 1973, to establish peace in Vietnam and end the Vietnam War. The agreement was signed by the governments of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), the United States, and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (representing South Vietnamese communists). The Paris Peace Accords removed the remaining United States forces, and fighting between the three remaining powers temporarily stopped. The agreement's provisions were immediately and frequently broken by both North and South Vietnamese forces with no official response from the United States. Open fighting broke out in March 1973, and North Vietnamese offensives enlarged their territory by the end of the year. The war continued until the fall of Saigon to North Vietnamese forces in 1975. This photograph shows William P. Rogers, United States Secretary of State, signing the accords in Paris.Photograph credit: Robert Knudsen; restored by Yann Forget