1. Cuban Missile Crisis and Bay of Pigs

2. Warm Up 1. Who supported the North Koreans? South Koreans?
2. How did the fight in the Korean War end?
3. Where is the division between North and South Korea?

3. Bay Of Pigs Invasion Cuba became Communist in 1958. We hate that.
We don’t want a Communist country too close to us.
Fidel Castro was the dictator of Cuba.

4. What are we going to do? Here’s the plan:
Round up people who had left Cuba to come to the United States in order to flee Communism.
Next, give them guns and military training.
Finally, fly them down to Cuba and have them invade the country.

6. We’re all pumped up

7. But then….right after they invade…..

8. Sounds great, did it work?
Negative. It was a total disaster.
In the middle of April, 1961, 1500 Cuban exiles tried to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.
Castro (Cuban Dictator) knew they were coming.
He easily crushed the invasion attempt.

9. The U.S. This makes us look like total fools.
It heightens Cold War tension between America and the Soviet Union.
America officially said we had nothing to do with it
The Soviets knew we were behind it and they were not happy about it.

10. Tension..

11. Cuba’s Missiles The Soviets don’t want the U.S. to mess with Cuba
They decide to put nuclear missiles in Cuba, and point them at us.
This means America is vulnerable to nuclear weapons hitting its cities.

12. We find out Our spy planes take pictures of the operation.
President Kennedy tells the nation about it.
We all freak out.

13. Spy pictures

14. What to do? Kennedy decides to send in the Navy
U.S. Navy ships blockade Cuba and don’t allow Soviet ships to reach Cuba.
Some Soviet ships are on their way and they run into our ships blocking Cuba.
They are not happy. .

15. Brink of Nuclear War
Kennedy and Khrushchev (Soviet Leader) face a problem. Each side is ready to actually fight.
They remain in contact by wiring each other messages (like ancient )
Finally the Soviet ships turn around and head back to Russia.
We were minutes away from Nuclear War.