Trace the city’s development “from pre-history to reunification,” says Rusty Compass, “with special emphasis on the revolutionary struggles.” Visitors can see the entrance to the secret tunnels built by South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in the early 1960s “in case he needed to beat a hasty escape.” It was built none too soon, notes Travelfish, because on November 1, 1963 “he used the passageway to flee during an attempted coup … he escaped to Cholon, a short lived reprieve as he and his brother were assassinated the following day.”
The museum is housed in a late nineteenth century building “which remains elegant despite its battleship gray paint job,” writes Asia for Visitors. It was used as the Cochinchina Governor's Palace, then after the 1945 revolution became the French High Commissioner's residence office, then the Southern Governor's Palace, was later used as the Supreme Court and in 1978 “the building was finally assigned its original purpose as a museum.”