In 1962, the United States and Soviet Union came close to nuclear war when the United States insisted that the Soviets remove their missiles from Cuba. The Soviets eventually did so, nuclear war was averted, and the crisis passed.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation during the Cold War between the Cubans and the United States regarding the Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba. The missiles were ostensibly placed to protect Cuba from further planned attacks by the United States after the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, and were rationalized by the Soviets as equivalent to the U.S. placing deployable nuclear warheads in the United Kingdom, Italy, and most significantly, Turkey. The crisis began on October 16, 1962 when U.S. reconnaissance imagery revealing Soviet nuclear missile installations on the island were shown to U.S.