Cuban Missile Crisis - Chase Hansen

The Cuban Missile Crisis begins on October 14, 1962, bringing the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear conflict. Photographs taken by U-2 spy plane offered evidence that Soviet-made missiles in Cuba were now stationed 90 miles off the American coastline.

Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union over Cuba had been steadily increasing since the failed April 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. Though the invasion did not succeed, Castro set out to get more military assistance from the Soviet Union. Two days after the pictures were taken, after being developed and analyzed by intelligence officers, they were presented to President Kennedy. During the next two weeks, the United States and the Soviet Union would come as close to nuclear war as they ever had, and a fearful world awaited the outcome.