Cuban Missile Crisis

Date

16–28 October 1962

Category

Military & conflict

Region

Caribbean / Global (United States, USSR, Cuba)

Era

Contemporary

Significance

For thirteen days in October 1962 the United States and the Soviet Union came closer to nuclear war than at any other point in the Cold War. After U.S. reconnaissance confirmed on 16 October that the USSR was installing nuclear-capable ballistic missiles in Cuba, President John F.

Kennedy announced a naval 'quarantine' (blockade) of the island on 22 October and demanded the missiles' removal. A tense standoff followed, including the shooting down of a U-2 spy plane over Cuba. The crisis was resolved on 28 October when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to dismantle and withdraw the missiles in exchange for a U.S. public pledge not to invade Cuba and a secret undertaking to remove American Jupiter missiles from Turkey. The episode demonstrated the dangers of brinkmanship and spurred arms-control measures, including the 1963 Moscow–Washington hotline and the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The naval quarantine remained in force until 20 November 1962.

Empires active in 16–28 October 1962

• Soviet Union
  1922 CE – 1991 CE
• French Colonial Empire (Second)
  1830 CE – 1962 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE – 1997 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE – 1976 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE – 1999 CE
• Solomonic dynasty
  1270 CE – 1974 CE

Related military & conflict events

• Korean War
  25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953
• Fall of Saigon and reunification of Vietnam
  30 April 1975 (reunified 1976)
• Khmer Rouge Seize Cambodia and Declare Year Zero
  1975
• Creation of Israel and the 1948 Arab–Israeli War
  14 May 1948 (war May 1948 – July 1949)
• The Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi
  7 April – 19 July 1994
• The September 11 attacks
  11 September 2001

Further reading

One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War

If you read one book

One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War

Michael Dobbs

Hour-by-hour narrative of the crisis.

Get it on Amazon →

Also worth reading

• Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis — Graham AllisonAmazon →

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