Cuban Missile Crisis | event that occurred during the 1960s

The Cuban Missile Crisis was an event that occurred during the 1960s. It happened during a time while there was a serious confrontation between the Soviet Union, the United States, and Cuba during the Cold War. In Russia, it is known as the Caribbean Crisis (Russian: Карибский кризис, Karibskiy krizis). Cuba calls it the October Crisis. The main target during the Cuban Missile Crisis was Cuba, because the Soviet Union was building 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.

It began when the Soviet Union (USSR) began building missile sites in Cuba in 1962. Together with the earlier Berlin Blockade, this crisis is seen as one of the most important confrontations of the Cold War. It may have been the moment when the Cold War came closest to a nuclear war.

There was a coup in Cuba in 1959. A small group led by Fidel Castro took power in this Cuban Revolution. The new government took over American businesses. The American government refused to import anything from Cuba after that. The US embargo against Cuba began February 7, 1962. In 1962, the American government was worried that the USSR would attack America from Cuba, because Cuba is near enough that the missiles could reach almost any city in America. Cuba was seen by the US as a communist country, like the Soviet Union.

In October 1962, American ships blocked Soviet ships carrying missiles from going into Cuba. The Soviets and Cubans agreed to take away the missiles if America promised not to attack Cuba. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Kennedy administration secretly agreed to remove the Jupiter missiles from Turkey in exchange for the withdrawal of all Russian nuclear weapons from Cuba.