Hồ Chí Minh (19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), was a Vietnamese Communist revolutionary leader who was Chairman and First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Vietnam. He was also Prime Minister (1945–1955) and President (1945–1969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He was a key figure in the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 as well as the People's Army of Vietnam and the Việt Cộng during the Vietnam War.
Hồ Chí Minh led the Việt Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the Communist-ruled Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at the battle of Điện Biên Phủ. He officially stepped down from power in 1965 due to health problems. After the war, Saigon, the former capital of the Republic of Vietnam, was renamed Hồ Chí Minh City.
Any description of Hồ Chí Minh's life before he came to power in Vietnam is necessarily fraught with ambiguity. He is known to have used at least 50 (or 75)[:582 and perhaps as many as 200 pseudonyms. His place of birth and date of birth are products of academic consensus since neither is known with certainty. At least four existing official biographies vary on names, dates, places and other hard facts while unofficial biographies vary even more widely.