Definitions for "Cuban Missile Crisis"
in October 1962, when President John F. Kennedy learned that Soviet nuclear missiles were being based in Cuba, he ordered a naval quarantine and demanded that the Soviet Union remove all their offensive weapons from the island. This confrontation brought the U.S. and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war. The crisis ended when the Soviets dismantled their missile installations in exchange for a U.S. agreement to discontinue efforts to overthrow Fidel Castro. http://tqd.advanced.org/11046
Caused when the United States discovered Soviet offensive missile sites in Cuba in October 1962; the U.S.-Soviet confrontation was the cold war's closest brush with nuclear war.
When U.S. satellite photos showed Soviet missile bases in Cuba, President Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of Cuba. The tense standoff nearly caused a nuclear war in 1962.