Quảng Trị Province in the context of Quảng Bình province

Bắc Trung Bộ (literally North Central Region, and often translated as North Central Coast) is one of the geographic regions of Vietnam. It consists of six provinces in northern part of Central Vietnam: Thanh Hóa, Nghệ An, Hà Tĩnh, Quảng Bình, Quảng Trị, Huế. The last two provinces were the northernmost provinces of State of Vietnam and South Vietnam until Reunification of Vietnam in 1976. In the Nguyễn dynasty, this area (except Thừa Thiên) was known as Hữu Trực Kỳ (the area located in the left of Thừa Thiên).

Lê Duẩn (Vietnamese: [lē zʷə̂n]; 7 April 1907 – 10 July 1986) was a Vietnamese communist politician. He rose in the party hierarchy in the late 1950s and became General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (VCP) at the 3rd National Congress in 1960. When Ho Chi Minh died in 1969, he consolidated power to become the undisputed leader of North Vietnam. Upon defeating South Vietnam in the Second Indochina War in 1975, he subsequently ruled the newly unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam from 1976 until his death in 1986.

He was born into a lower-class family in Quảng Trị Province, in the Annam Protectorate of French Indochina as Lê Văn Nhuận. Little is known about his family and childhood. He first came in contact with revolutionary thoughts in the 1920s through his work as a railway clerk. Lê Duẩn was a founding member of the Indochina Communist Party (the future Communist Party of Vietnam) in 1930. He was imprisoned in 1931 and released in 1937. From 1937 to 1939, he climbed the party ladder. He was rearrested in 1939, this time for fomenting an uprising in the South. Lê Duẩn was released from jail following the successful Communist-led August Revolution of 1945.

Lý Thánh Tông (19th March 1023 - 1st February 1072), personal name Lý Nhật Tôn [lǐ ɲə̀t ton], temple name Thánh Tông, was the third emperor of the Lý dynasty and the 8th ruler of the Vietnamese dynasty Đại Việt. In his reign, Lý Thánh Tông promoted the agricultural development, reducing some harsh laws and building many Confucianist and Buddhist institutions, most notably the first Temple of Literature in Vietnam (1072). He also fought several successful wars with Champa, resulting in the expansion of Vietnamese territory to the areas which are Quảng Bình Province and Quảng Trị Province today. Chinese sources identify Lý Nhật Tôn as the Viet monarch that dared toclaim imperial status, which for the Chinese was a direct challenge to their view of the world that prelude to the Song-Viet war in 1070s.