Hồ Chí Minh led the Vietnamese nationalist movement for more than three decades, fighting first against the Japanese, afterwards against the French colonial power and then against the US-backed South Vietnam. He was a key figure in the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in 1945, becoming also its prime minister (1945-1955) and its president (1945-1969). Today, he has in Vietnam an almost god-like status, still being called Uncle Ho. In 1987, UNESCO officially recommended to Member States that they "join in the commemoration of the centenary of the birth of President Ho Chi Minh by organizing various events as a tribute to his memory", considering "the important and many-sided contribution of President Ho Chi Minh in the fields of culture, education and the arts" and that Ho Chi Minh "devoted his whole life to the national liberation of the Vietnamese people, contributing to the common struggle of peoples for peace, national independence, democracy and social progress". In his honor, after the Communist conquest of the South in 1975, Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.
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