Ho Chi Minh was born in Vietnam in 1890 and studied in France where he was exposed to communism. He helped organize the French Communist Party and returned to Vietnam to lead an independence movement against French colonial rule. Ho founded the Indochinese Communist Party and organized the Vietminh resistance group to fight the Japanese occupation during World War II. After the war, he served as president of North Vietnam during the conflict with France and later the United States. Ho Chi Minh died in 1969 and is still viewed as the founder of modern Vietnam.