What is the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Q: What is the Cuban Missile Crisis?
A: The Cuban Missile Crisis was an event that occurred during the 1960s, when there was a serious confrontation between the Soviet Union, the United States, and Cuba during the Cold War. It began when the Soviet Union (USSR) began building missile sites in Cuba in 1962.
Q: What caused this crisis?
A: This crisis was caused by the Soviet Union's building of sites for ballistic missiles so that they could target the United States. As a result, this had caused the United States and the Soviet Union to create a proxy conflict directed at Cuba, causing them to indirectly attack each other because of Cuba.
Q: What happened before this crisis?
A: Before this crisis occurred, there was a coup in Cuba in 1959 where a small group led by Fidel Castro took power in what is known as the Cuban Revolution. After this revolution, The American government refused to import anything from Cuba and thus began an embargo against it on February 7th 1962.
Q: How did America respond to these events?
A: In October 1962, American ships blocked Soviet ships carrying missiles from going into Cuba due to their fear that USSR would attack America from Cuba with those missiles.
Q: How did Russia and Cuba react?
A: The Soviets and Cubans agreed to take away all of their nuclear weapons from Cuba if America promised not to attack them.
Q: What agreement did Kennedy make during this time?
A: During the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy secretly agreed to remove Jupiter missiles from Turkey in exchange for withdrawal of all Russian nuclear weapons from Cuba.
