Cuban missile crisis, 1962

maven.mapping:

On October 22, 1962, U.S. President John F. Kennedy addressed the nation, revealing that Soviet nuclear missiles had been deployed in Cuba, just 150 km from American shores. The Cuban Missile Crisis had begun, the closest the world ever came to full-scale nuclear war.

For 13 tense days, Washington and Moscow stood on the brink of catastrophe. The U.S. imposed a naval blockade around Cuba, while Soviet ships carrying more missiles sailed toward the island. A secret negotiation finally defused the crisis: the USSR withdrew its missiles from Cuba in exchange for a U.S. pledge not to invade the island and a quiet withdrawal of American missiles from Turkey.

The events of October 1962 remain a stark reminder of how fragile peace can be and how close humanity once came to the unthinkable.

Collection: cold-war - Tags: cuba, cold-war, 1962 - Source: instagram.com