History of the United States II / Unit 14 USH2 1957 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
The Cuban Missile Crisis
The idea
On October fourteenth, nineteen sixty-two, American spy planes photographed Soviet missile sites in Cuba. On October twenty-second Kennedy demanded their removal, and on October twenty-sixth Khrushchev agreed, in exchange for a promise not to invade Cuba. The anchor says the agreement was made public on the twenty-seventh; the Yawp dates the Soviet agreement to the twenty-eighth.
In practice
Two powers at the edge of nuclear war, with long-range bombers airborne or ready, as the anchor describes.
Where people slip
The familiar story ends with Khrushchev backing down. The sources record a trade. Kept secret, but part of the agreement, was an American promise to remove weapons from Turkey, which the anchor calls warheads and both witnesses call missiles, about as near to Soviet targets as the Cuban missiles were to American ones. Digital History calls them aging missiles, and the Yawp says the Soviets had placed missiles in Cuba partly in response to that American arsenal. The secret half is the lesson.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
Unlocks
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