The Cuban Missile Crisis
-"We went eyeball to eyeball and I think the other fellows just blinked"
-Americans supported a corrupt machine under Fulgencio Batista until the Cuban revolution in 1959
-Fidel Castro took over
-Aligned with the Soviets
-The Bay of Pigs (failed invasion of Cuba)
-1962 Soviets began to put nuclear weapons into Cuba (noticed by U2 spy planes)
-Americans supported a corrupt machine under Fulgencio Batista until the Cuban revolution in 1959
-Fidel Castro took over
-Aligned with the Soviets
-The Bay of Pigs (failed invasion of Cuba)
-1962 Soviets began to put nuclear weapons into Cuba (noticed by U2 spy planes)
summary
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba. In a TV address President John Kennedy notified Americans about the presence of the missiles, explained his decision to enact a naval blockade around Cuba and made it clear the U.S. was prepared to use military force if necessary to neutralize this perceived threat to national security. Following this news, many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war. However, disaster was avoided when the U.S. agreed to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s offer to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for the U.S. promising not to invade Cuba. Kennedy also secretly agreed to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey.