territory that would become known as Vietnam is not known. Early contact The first Baháʼí to visit Vietnam is likely to have been , one of the first Baháʼís of France, who undertook a number of travels around the globe at the request of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. After an initial planned visit was aborted in 1914 due to the outbreak of World War I, Dreyfus-Barney arrived in what was then French Indochina in 1920, visiting Saigon and Hanoi. Four years later in May 1924, prominent Baháʼí travelling teacher Martha Root paid a week-long visit to Saigon. During her stay, she promoted the message and principles of the religion to a number of newspapers, making friends with one Madame Boeuf, editor of an English section in "L'Information de l'Extrême Orient". Boeuf was sympathetic to the principles of the Baháʼí religion, and published a number of favorable French-language articles. Several other newspapers also printed articles describing Baháʼí principles, in French, Chinese and Vietnamese. A public lecture was arranged with the help of the Governor, who, when approached, "himself telephoned the President of the largest school" to communicate his approval. Besides these initiatives, Root made calls to nineteen schools, societies and individuals in Saigon. In 1951, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baháʼís of India, Pakistan and Burma adopted the goal of sending pioneers to a number of cities throughout Africa and Southeast Asia, including Saigon, in response to the summons of Shoghi Effendi, then head of the Baháʼí Faith. In a letter to an individual in September of that year, Shoghi Effendi reported that there were Baháʼís in Indochina at that time, although their settlement seems to have been short-lived; a March 1952 report stated that Indochina remained unopened to the Baha'i Faith. South Vietnam (1954–1975) Following nearly a decade of war between colonial France and the communist Viet Minh, which ended in a decisive French defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, both sides met at the Geneva Conference on 21 July 1954. A provisional division of Vietnam was made at the 17th parallel, creating the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the north and the State of Vietnam (later the Republic of Vietnam) in the south. Much of the development of the Baháʼí Faith during the following period took place in South Vietnam; the first Baháʼí groups in the north would not be established until 1992, long after the country's reunification. Establishment