Kennedy revealed the Cuban Missile Crisis to the world
On this day · 22 October 1962
In a single televised address, JFK told Americans that Soviet nuclear missiles sat 90 miles from Florida.
On the evening of October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy sat before television cameras and delivered news that froze the nation. U-2 spy-plane photographs had confirmed the Soviet Union was building medium-range nuclear missile sites in Cuba, weapons capable of striking American cities within minutes.
Kennedy announced a naval “quarantine” — a blockade in all but name — to halt further shipments of offensive arms, and he demanded the missiles be removed.
“To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated.”
What followed were thirteen days of brinkmanship widely regarded as the closest the world came to nuclear war. Behind the public standoff, Soviet ships turned back, and a deal emerged: Moscow would dismantle the sites in exchange for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba. A separate, secret arrangement to withdraw American missiles from Turkey stayed hidden for more than twenty-five years.
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