Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban Missile Crisis took place during the Cold War . It was closest the we ever came to a nuclear war. The U.S. and the Soviet Union were the main contenders, but the countries in NATO and the Warsaw Pact were also involved.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was an arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union , to see who could create the strongest nuclear weapon . In 1962, the Soviet Union fell back because their weapon was only powerful enough to take out Europe . The U.S. on the other hand would take out the entire Soviet Union. In April 1962, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev came up with the idea of placing intermediate-range missiles in Cuba.

In October 1962 , the U.S. discovered pictures of the Soviets missile construction in Cuba. The next day, President Kennedy was informed of the missile installations. Kennedy began organizing the EX-COMM, a group of twelve important advisors to handle the crisis. Things began to calm down on October 28 when Khrushchev announced that he would dismantle the installations and take the missiles back to the Soviet Union.