There was increasing tension in the Cold War and French domination in Indochina came to an end. A French colony since the 19th Century and victim of a Japanese invasion during World War II, Vietnam staged a guerilla war against Japanese invaders. The action was led by Ho Chi Minh, after he formed the Vietminh (League for the Independence of Vietnam), an armed division of the Vietnamese Communist Party.

When the French attempted to occupy the country again in 1946, they clashed with a disciplined army, well-trained in asymmetric combat, which mounted a general uprising, proclaimed independence in 1965 and founded the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The hostilities, which began in 1946, extended until 1954, when France, supported by the United States, succumbed to a resilient Vietminh.

The fate of this war was decided in the battle of Dien Bien Phu, a valley in the northeastern part of the country, where the French expected to deploy enough infantry and artillery to sever the Chinese supply to Vietnam. In March, as diplomats discussed a peace agreement in Geneva, the Vietminh attacked and caused severe damages and deaths to the French, who surrendered on May 7th.

In Geneva, the parties agreed upon France's departure, the division of Vietnam into two sovereign states and a referendum by which the Vietnamese people would decide on either reunification or separation. In October, rebel forces entered Hanoi (the capital city of North Vietnam) led by Ho Chi Minh. The referendum was never held, and this sparked the Second Indochina War. 

A year of detonations as the first H-Bomb was fired on February 2nd. Shortly after, a polio vaccine was announced. On May 17th, the US Supreme Court ruled against racial segregation in schools. On June 27th, Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz was overthrown. On July 13th, Mexican painter Frida Kahlo died; four days later, Angela Merkel, current German chancellor was born. Brazilian President Getulio Vargas, father of the "New State" committed suicide in August. Ernest Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature in December, and the first kidney transplant was performed on Christmas Eve in a Boston hospital.

In January, construction work began in Venezuela for the 23 de Enero neighborhood and the first iron shipment to the United States was made. On March 1st, the 10th Inter-American Conference was held in Caracas, making a stance against communism. On July 28th, Hugo Chávez was born. In November, it was announced that Pérez Jiménez would receive the Legion of Merit from the United States. On September 6th, the towers of El Silencio were inaugurated, and the mythical Venezuelan painter Armando Reverón died.