A culture of memory - Fifty years since the Cuban Missile Crisis

Thirteen days that changed the world

In the fall of 1962, the world watches helplessly as a Cold War nuclear poker game in which the chip equals one megaton of trinitrotoluene. The Soviet government is secretly building bases in Cuba and deploying missiles with nuclear warheads within range of Washington and half of the US strategic bomber bases. US President John F. Kennedy rejects military pressure to bomb Cuba immediately and orders a naval blockade. American bombers are in the air. Russian ships are approaching the blockade line of which they were not informed... Exactly half a century has passed since the thirteen-day Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, when atomic Armageddon was narrowly avoided, the last battle before the end of the world