Cuban Missile Crisis

Just over 50 years ago the world was teetering on the edge of nuclear war as the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded following the USSR's decision to deploy nuclear missiles on the Caribbean island. The BBC produced three Witness podcasts to commemorate the Cold War Crisis, follow the links to find them:

The Photos, the Missiles, the Showdown.

The John Kennedy Library has some interesting resources and a microsite on the crisis called World on the Brink. You can also try out the Schools' World TV site, BBC Bitesize and J.D. Clare for further resources and information.

Here is the video from the BBC History 20th Century series on Cuba (Mr Kennedy and Mr Khrushchev)


 Have a look at the previous post on Cuba for some other resources and videos.

The Cuban Missile Crisis

The world was brought to the brink of nuclear war as the two superpowers stared each other out during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Take a look at some of these resources to get a more in-depth view of this Cold War showdown.

John Clare provides a good introduction to the Crisis on his site, while the BBC looks at events in a bit more depth.
Also worth trying out is this BBC Podcast on the Crisis, while if you want to do some real historical research, take a look at the National Security Archive documents.

You can see Kennedy's address to the nation after the discovery of the missiles below:



Here is an introduction to the Crisis from an American documentary about the Crisis:



For a Soviet perspective on the Crisis from Khrushchev's son Sergei, follow this link on You Tube.

Revision
Finally, you might want to try out this date-matching exercise from School History for a bit of revision or the Bitesize section on Cuba from the BBC. The National Archive has its usual high quality take on events.