JFK's Darkest Hour: The Cuban Missile Crisis

JFK's Darkest Hour: The Cuban Missile Crisis

In October 1962 the world came very close to annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis. During the autumn of 1962, a U2 reconnaissance aircraft produced clear evidence that the Soviet Union and the Cuban authorities were building medium-range ballistic missile facilities on the island of Cuba and only around 100 miles from the coast of Florida. The resulting confrontation between the USA under JFK and the Soviet Union led by Nikita Khrushchev lasted just over a month and it's often considered to be the closest that the Cold War came to escalating to full-scale nuclear war. Serhii Plokhy, author of Nuclear Folly: A New History of the Cuban Missile Crisis, is Dan's guest on the podcast today. Serhii's research, using new archive material, has shown that during the crisis we came even closer than previously thought to the Cold War going hot.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Avsnitt(1491)

Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer

On a summer morning in 1945, a device known simply as 'Gadget' was detonated. An enormous explosion tore a crater into the New Mexico desert, melting sand into radioactive green glass and sending a mu...

19 Juli 202333min

Black Boxes: Recording Airplanes' Final Moments

Black Boxes: Recording Airplanes' Final Moments

They can survive in lava for half an hour and accelerations of 3,400 Gs. Their beacons can be detected 20,000 feet beneath the waves. Most shocking of all - they aren't actually black! (They're bright...

18 Juli 202332min

Prigozhin: The Fate of Russian ‘Favourites’

Prigozhin: The Fate of Russian ‘Favourites’

Russian history is defined by the rise and fall of favourites. Peter the Great had Menshikov, and Nicholas II had Rasputin. It's part of the architecture of Russian regimes that those close to the rul...

17 Juli 202326min

Napoleon

Napoleon

Did Napoleon really come from nothing and conquer everything? The release of the trailer for Ridley Scott's new epic biopic film has created hot debate among fans of the famous Frenchman everywhere. I...

16 Juli 202338min

The Picts: Scourge of Rome

The Picts: Scourge of Rome

Emerging around the 3rd century CE and later designated official adversaries of the Roman Empire, the Picts wreaked havoc across the northern fringes of Roman Britain. But due to their limited presenc...

12 Juli 202342min

Russia & USA: The 100-Year Cold War

Russia & USA: The 100-Year Cold War

The Cold War was defined by the antagonism between two world superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. They relied on proxy wars, espionage, disinformation, assassinations and sabotage to u...

11 Juli 202325min

The North Pole Scandal

The North Pole Scandal

In the autumn of 1909, the American explorer Frederick Cook arrived in Copenhagen, claiming to have become the first person to reach the North Pole. His dramatic return had been eagerly anticipated, b...

10 Juli 202324min

Operation Mincemeat

Operation Mincemeat

The most audacious deception operation of WWII. On the 30th of April, 1943, the corpse of a 'Major Martin' washed up near the Spanish city of Huelva. On his body, Spanish officials found secret docume...

9 Juli 202338min

Populärt inom Historia

motiv
massmordarpodden
historiska-brott
p3-historia
historiepodden-se
olosta-mord
rss-massmordarpodden
rss-seriemordarpodden
rss-brottsligt
historianu-med-urban-lindstedt
konspirationsteorier
nu-blir-det-historia
rss-historien-om
krigshistoriepodden
militarhistoriepodden
harrisons-dramatiska-historia
palmemordet
rss-arkiv-stieg
vetenskapsradion-historia
rss-borgvattnets-hemligheter