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Vergangenheitsbewältigung
Vergangenheitsbewältigung, or "coming to terms with the past" (Geschichtsaufarbeitung), is Germany's political and cultural effort to confront the crimes of the Nazi dictatorship and, since 1990, the East German SED dictatorship.
Veteran
Veteran: a person who has served in a country's armed forces, defined by law (US Title 38, UK one-day rule). Covers census definitions, benefits history, the American Legion, VFW, Royal British Legion, and remembrance.
Veterans Day
Veterans Day, formerly Armistice Day, is the U.S. federal holiday on November 11 honoring all who served in the Armed Forces, marking the 1918 World War I armistice; renamed by Public Law 380 in 1954.
Vicente Guerrero
Vicente Ramón Guerrero Saldaña (Vicente Guerrero), insurgent general from Tixtla who sustained Mexico's independence war in the south, allied with Iturbide in 1821, became president in 1829, abolished slavery by decree, and was executed in 1831.
Victoria Incident
The Victoria Incident was a July 1893 confrontation at Fort Victoria (now Masvingo, Zimbabwe) in which British South Africa Company forces fired on withdrawing Ndebele raiders, the immediate cause of the First Matabele War.
Victorio's War
Victorio's War (September 1879 to October 1880) was an armed conflict in which the Apache leader Victorio fought US and Mexican forces, ending with his death at Tres Castillos, Mexico.
Victory in Europe Day
Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day, VE Day) marks Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender, signed at Reims May 7 and Berlin May 8, 1945; observed May 8 in the West, May 9 in Russia, before the Pacific war ended.
Victory over Japan Day
Victory over Japan Day (V-J Day) commemorates Japan's WWII surrender, observed August 14/15, 1945 (Hirohito's radio announcement) or September 2 (formal signing aboard USS Missouri); the US, UK, Philippines, and China mark different dates.
Vienna offensive
The Vienna offensive (Wiener Operation) was a Red Army operation of March to April 1945, led by Marshal Fyodor Tolbukhin, that captured Vienna on 13 April.
Vienna Uprising of 1848
The Vienna Uprising of 1848 was a revolutionary movement by students, workers, and the liberal middle class in the Habsburg capital, suppressed by imperial troops in October 1848.
Việt Bắc
Việt Bắc is the mountainous region of northeastern Vietnam that hosted Vietnam's resistance headquarters against French rule from 1946 to 1954, and also a celebrated 1954 poem by Tố Hữu.
Viet Cong
Viet Cong (Việt Cộng): name for the communist insurgency in South Vietnam, the National Liberation Front (founded 20 December 1960) and its military arm, the People's Liberation Armed Force; organized in three tiers and directed by North Vietnam.
Viet Minh
Viet Minh (Việt Nam Độc Lập Đồng Minh), nationalist-communist front founded by Ho Chi Minh in May 1941 at Pac Bo; led the August Revolution 1945 and First Indochina War, merged into Lien Viet Front in 1951.
Vietnam War
Vietnam War (American War in Vietnam): conflict between communist-led North Vietnam and US-backed South Vietnam, ending 30 April 1975 with Saigon's fall; dau tranh strategy, ~60,000 American and 3 million Vietnamese deaths.
Vietnam War casualties
Vietnam War casualties: deaths from the 1955-1975 war. 58,220 U.S. military fatal casualties per DCAS; Vietnam's 1995 estimate of 2 million civilian and 1.1 million communist combatant deaths; South Vietnamese military deaths about 224,000.
Vietnam War POW/MIA issue
The Vietnam War POW/MIA issue concerns American prisoners of war and missing personnel from the Vietnam War and the effort to account for the roughly 1,500 still unaccounted for.
Vietnamese boat people
Vietnamese boat people (Thuyền nhân Việt Nam) were refugees who fled Vietnam by sea from 1975 to the mid-1990s after the communist takeover, peaking in 1979; most were resettled in Western countries under the 1979 Geneva framework and later CPA screening.
Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia (1834–1841)
The Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia (1834–1841) was the Nguyễn dynasty's direct rule of Cambodia under Emperor Minh Mạng, ended by a nationwide 1840 uprising and Siamese intervention.
Vietnamization
Vietnamization was the Nixon administration's 1969-1973 policy of withdrawing U.S. troops from South Vietnam while building up South Vietnamese forces (RVNAF/ARVN) to fight on their own, an application of the Nixon Doctrine that ended with the 1973 Paris Accords and Saigon's fall in 1975.
Viking raid on Seville
Viking raid on Seville (844 CE): Scandinavian fleet of about 80 ships, called Mayus or al-Urdumaniyyun in Arabic sources, sacked Seville for seven days before Emir Abd al-Rahman II's army defeated it on 17 December 844, prompting walls, arsenals, and the disputed al-Ghazal embassy.
Viktor Bout–Brittney Griner prisoner exchange
The Viktor Bout–Brittney Griner prisoner exchange: December 8, 2022 one-for-one swap at Abu Dhabi airport freeing the WNBA star detained for cannabis oil in Russia for the convicted arms dealer, with Paul Whelan excluded.
Villa Tunari massacre
The Villa Tunari massacre was the killing of 5 to 12 coca-growing peasants by Bolivian anti-narcotics police in Villa Tunari, Bolivia, on 27 June 1988.
Violations of non-combatant airspace during the Russo-Ukrainian war (2022–present)
Airspace violations of countries neighboring Russia and Ukraine by war-connected drones, missiles, and military aircraft since 24 February 2022, documented in the Pleines Zenodo dataset and ACLED, escalating with the September 2025 Polish drone incursion and NATO's Eastern Sentry response.
Virginia in the American Civil War
Virginia in the American Civil War (1861–1865): the Confederacy's largest state, home of the capital at Richmond, site of over 2,000 engagements and 26 major battles, split by West Virginia's 1863 statehood, and central to emancipation and the Appomattox surrender.
Vitebsk uprising (1623)
The Vitebsk uprising of 12 November 1623 was the killing of Josaphat Kuntsevych, Uniate archbishop of Polotsk, by Orthodox townspeople of Vitebsk, provoked by the arrest of an Orthodox priest.
Vlora War
The Vlora War (Lufta e Vlorës), also called the War of the Twenties, was a 1920 uprising in which Albanian irregulars expelled Italian troops from Vlora.
Voluntary repatriation of Korean War POWs
Voluntary repatriation of Korean War POWs was the UN principle that prisoners choose whether to return to Communist control, delaying the 1953 armistice by over a year.
Voulet–Chanoine Mission
The Voulet–Chanoine Mission was a French expedition to the Chad Basin that turned rogue in 1899, pillaging across the Sahel until its soldiers killed both commanders.
Vyazma and Bryansk Encirclements
The Vyazma and Bryansk Encirclements (Вяземский и Брянский котлы) were October 1941 battles in which German Army Group Centre encircled three Soviet fronts defending the approaches to Moscow.
Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts
Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts: hundreds of thousands of non-German citizens, from Finland, Norway, France, Wallonia, the Benelux countries, and the Baltic, who served in the SS's military branch during World War II, motivated by ideology, anti-communism, or pressure, and implicated in Holocaust atrocities.