The Cuban Missile Crisis: What We Know Now and Why It Matters

The Cuban missile crisis was a six-day public confrontation in October 1962 between the United States and the Soviet Union over the presence of Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, some 90 miles from the southernmost tip of the United States. It is one of the most studied and most thoroughly documented events of all time. Historians and chroniclers have described it variously as the "most dangerous moment in human history," the "high noon of the Cold War," the "week the world stood still," and, as "thirteen days" which constituted the "two most important weeks in human history." For those who experienced it, it is remembered as the most terrifying moment in our lives, a moment when the world stood on the brink of a nuclear Armageddon. Incorporating the latest scholarship, this course will examine the origins, course, and aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis-focusing on what we know now about the crisis after decades of scholarship, how its story has changed over the years, and its continued significance more than 60 years later.