OTD in History: The Cuban Missile Crisis
Thirteen Days of Tension Kick Off
I was proud of myself in high school for renting the movie Thirteen Days because I had to watch it for my U.S. History class and do a report on the event. Normally I only watched movies with car chases, dragons, fight scenes, or hot chicks (preferably all of the above) so picking something Serious (TM) made me feel disciplined.
On October 16, 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis started, a very tense two-week period where Soviet missile silos were sighted by spy planes in striking range of American cities, thanks to Cuba (damn commies) and the Soviets (damn commies) teaming up to mess with us. This was probably JFK’s heaviest foreign policy test.
It wasn’t entirely unprovoked. In 1961 the Bay of Pigs Invasion failed—this was an American attempt (a CIA op) to overthrow Castro, who hadn’t been in power all that long at the time. The USSR wanted to deter further such attempts by putting nukes 90 miles away from Miami. America already had missiles in Turkey, so the mutual suspicion was real.
In the end, Kennedy’s communications with the Kremlin resulted in a de-escalation. It’s an event that my generation (and those after me) don’t often think about because Nothing Actually Happened (TM) but for thirteen days, it very nearly did.
Anyway. The crisis ended on October 29th, which coincidentally is when FOSSIL FORCE launches. Pre-order the Kindle edition now, or get the paperback on release day.