Cuban Missile Crisis

Answer this question… Cuba's communist leaders demanded Soviet military support after U.S.-trained soldiers had invaded Cuba.

An ICBM is long range and its warheads are falling more or less ballistically, even if you "shot them down" they would continue on almost the same trajectory still hitting their target. You can't just shoot them down you must have the accuracy to totally destroy them (and they are under 1 foot in diameter and traveling at tens of thousands of miles per hour).

On October 14, 1962 and shortly thereafter, the U.S. identified 42 Soviet nuclear missiles at ten sites in Cuba. This began the Cuban Missile Crisis, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear disaster, which lasted until the U.S. naval blockade of Cuba ended November 21, 1962. This tense situation resulted in the establishment of the Moscow-Washington hotline .

The beginning of the Cold War could be traced back to Churchill's use of the term "Iron Curtain", on 3 May 1946. This came to symbolise the beginning of the Cold War because it was the period marked by political tension and military rivalry, stopping just short of escalating into full-scale war, between the West as represented by the USA, and the East headed by the Soviet Union.

However, the Cold War did not have an "official" start date with a single day in mind. Some historians feel it began at the end of World War II, in late 1945, when Josef Stalin of the USSR refused to let the Eastern European nations go after the war. The US, Britain and France demanded the nations be allowed to chose their own types of government. Stalin was not going to let that happen, and his actions escalated the arms race of the Cold War. Some historians suggest it began in 1949, after the Yalta Conference.

The Cold War could really only truly be seen to have ended with the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of the two Germanys - one symbolising the East and the other symbolising the West - in 1990. Shortly after this, many Russian states began to break free, seeking independence from Russia.

Do You Hear What I Hear was written in October 1962 as a plea for peace amid the Cuban Missile Crisis. Please see the related link for more information:

President Kennedy is credited with resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis.
President John F. Kennedy

In early 1963, Fidel Castro had been invited to meet with Premier Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow. It is important to note that it was the "new" Cuban leader travelling to Moscow and not Khrushchev meeting Castro in Havana. Reportedly the purpose was to assure and smooth over any of Castro's fears of becoming sacrificed to allow for better relations between the USSR and the West. Based on Castro's speeches upon his return to Cuba, it appeared that any ill feelings between the two nations had been healed when Castro met with the leaders in Moscow.

First cuba isn't a communist island second if you actually did research and actually went to Cuba you would know it's not a communist island third of all this is how you spell: Fidel Castro dumb a**

They did not lose anything. Nor did the Cubans or the Soviet Union. They all had to work the crisis out and prevent a nuclear war. They all suceeded. Media often lies about this and says USA did sort it out alone, so i sugest you ignore media "info"

because Cuba wanted U.S. to help them

only way to get their attention was by burning the sugar plantations of American investors

A rocket or unmanned airplane with one or more nuclear warheads as its payload.

Satellite pictures where not at the highest quality, so when the pictures were looked at, they believed they saw the evidence. The then flew reconnaissance aircraft to take pictures of Cuba. They were the U2 aircraft that found them.

Because the world came extremely close to nuclear war, during the Cuban missile crisis, it made people very nervous, and prolonged the distrust and hostility between the US and the USSR, which really ended only in 1989, with the collapse of the USSR.

Soviets were establishing nuclear missile sites in Cuba.

The Cuban state at the time was more than accepting of Soviet ships at the time, and they held a lot of anger towards the U.S. for good reason, in particular, the botched U.S. CIA operation that was later called the "Bay of Pigs". The Soviets had to ship their nuclear weapons and materials by ship at the time. At the time, nuclear missile technology was not exactly simple to pick up and take on a plane. As well, there were few Soviet aircraft which could reliably transport nuclear materials, and even the ones that could were generally restricted for actual nuclear operations, and you can bet the U.S. was looking for them. Also, the Soviets were doing it secretly; it was a "surprise" in case the Americans got a little...carried away, so to speak. Anyhow, air delivery was out of the question, so they blockaded the island from Soviet ships.

The story of why they blockaded the Soviet ships has a lot to do with why they did not want the missiles in Cuba in the first place; the advantage the U.S. was taking advantage of; a 3000 mile gap between Soviet ICBM's and reasonable American targets had shrunk to only 90 miles. This meant a nuclear warhead, instead of landing in maybe 18 to 20 hours, where a lot of people could be somewhere safe, reducing casualties substantially, shrunk to half an hour.

Think about the difference for you, if you were in that position: if you were told a nuclear warhead was going to hit your hometown in 18 hours, you would be terrified, but you can run, but 30 minutes...that was helluva scary for the Americans at the time, so the panic made the U.S. react very strongly, blockading the island, so the threat from the island would not go any larger; lest the potential bloodshed would get MUCH larger.

Hungarian Crisis- relations between the Soviet Union and Western Europe soured. The Hungarian Revolution caused Hungarians dissidents to launch a popular uprising in November 1956 to demand democratic reforms. For several days they had control of the government but Soviet troops soon took over again.

He did but he called it a "quarantine" instead of a blockade, to avoid the fact that by international law a blockade is an act of war and could have been considered an implicit Declaration of War. Basically he was "walking on eggshells" in an attempt to avoid starting World War 3.

1. Chuck Norris

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It resulted in Castro establishing Communism in Cuba.

It was a failed invasion of Cuba.

It was a failed attempt to overthrow Castro.

About 6,200 miles is a best guess- exact specs are classified.

The US won the Cuban Missile Crisis only by making a secret deal with the Soviet Union. This left Cuba in the hands of Fidel Castro. Although it confirmed the strength of the US in preventing Soviet armaments from being placed in Latin America, Cuba itself regularly provided arms and troops to communist guerrilla movements.
The United States further extended its containment policy in Latin America---You're welcome Gradpoint users :)

The naval quarantine acted as almost a distraction between the real problems that had arisen from the Cuban Missile Crisis. The real problems were solved between Kennedy and Khrushchev via telegram communication. It didn't do anything to remove the missiles.

Well I would say a world event. It involved the United States, the Soveit Union and Cuba. President Kennedy admitted to lack of missile gap unlike Eisenhower. He says US is way ahead of the Soviets in the developing missiles. This makes Khrushchev look bad. And this angers Cuba a lot especially after our failed attempt with the Bay of Pigs. Castro starts to buddy up with the Soviets a lot more. Khrushchev doesn't want to see the US take Cuba down. So he offers to arm Castro with weapons. The US has the Soviet Union surrounded with missile sites and the Soviets wants at least one site near the US. If they could get Cuba they would have their "one place". If they could not get their "one place" they threatened to attack Eastern Europe so even though it was between the U.S and the S.U other vital areas were being threatened if they couldn't directly attack the U.S. A U2 plane discovered installation sites being built in Cuba by the soviets. Kennedy called together the National Security Council, DOD, etc. to discuss what to do with this. We came up with three options. 1)Invade Cuba-Bay of pigs was a failure. 2) Air Strike- were afraid if we did do that ,t hey would shoot our planes3) Leave it alone. No one was really satisfied with those three option so we decided to Quarantine AKA Blockade Cuba. The Cuban Missile Crisis scared everyone to death; we were on the verge of nuclear war. In 1963 the US and the Soviet Union Signed a nuclear Test Ban Treaty which banned the testing of atomic weapons. A hotline was also set up between Moscow and Washington D.C.

what questions about nuclear weapons did the Cuban missile crisis raise in Canada's minds? why did these questions divide Canadians?