the united states rook photos by a high-altitude U-2 spy plane offered incontrovertible evidence that Soviet-made medium-range missiles in Cuba

Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union over Cuba had been steadily increasing since the failed April 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion

Khrushchev also had always resented that U.S. nuclear missiles were stationed near the Soviet Union (in Turkey), and putting missiles in Cuba might have been his way of redressing the imbalance.

During the next two weeks, the United States and the Soviet Union would come as close to nuclear war as they ever had, and a fearful world awaited the outcome.