The Gang of Five
Beyond the Mysterious Beyond => The Fridge => History Section => Topic started by: The Chronicler on October 22, 2012, 08:30:40 PM
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The Cuban missile crisis happened back in October 1962, 50 years ago at around this time. I don't think any of us here were around at the time, so it's kind of hard for us to understand these days just how close we came to starting World War 3 because of it.
What I find remarkable about the Cuban missile crisis was how it was resolved peacefully with virtually no casualties. Hard compromises had to be made (the Soviets removed their missiles from Cuba, while the U.S. removed theirs from Turkey), but the leaders of the two superpowers (Kennedy of the United States, and Khrushchev of the Soviet Union) ultimately did the right thing.
I find myself agreeing with many historians that never before or since has humanity ever come so close to completely destroying itself.
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It also have birth to the phone connection between Moscow and DC to be used in case they ever were to fire their missiles.
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It certainly was a very close call for humanity. There have been some other cases where mankind got just as close or perhaps even closer, but not as much through real diplomatic tensions as through misunderstandings that left single people in the position of having to make decisions and use their minds rather than following strict order. Like Stanislav Petrov who in 1983 (very tense time during the cold war shortly after a South Corean passenger plane had been shot down by the Soviets under the accusation that it had been equiped with cameras and was on a spyin mission) refused to belive the information he was given according to which the US was launching an all out nuclear attack against the Soviet Union. Acting against his orders he refused to launch the nuclear counter attack and it ultimately turned out that the US attack had been a misinterpreted reflection of sunlight from clouds. There are quite a couple (http://www.cracked.com/article_19790_6-tiny-mistakes-that-almost-ended-world.html) of other cases where the world was nearly destroyed because of ridiculous mistakes, but none was as publicly broadcast and followed by as many people as the Cuban Missile Crisis.