Cuban missile crisis

¹ Cultural  

1. A confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962 over the presence of missile sites in Cuba; one of the “hottest” periods of the cold war. The Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, placed Soviet military missiles in Cuba, which had come under Soviet influence after the success of the Cuban Revolution three years earlier. President John F. Kennedy of the United States set up a naval blockade of Cuba and insisted that Khrushchev remove the missiles. Khrushchev did so.

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Cuban missile crisis ² Cultural  

1. A confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962 over the presence of missile sites in Cuba; one of the “hottest” periods of the cold war. The Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, placed Soviet military missiles in Cuba, which had come under Soviet influence since the success of the Cuban Revolution three years earlier. President John F. Kennedy of the United States set up a naval blockade of Cuba and insisted that Khrushchev remove the missiles. Khrushchev did.

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Example Sentences

The market entirely shrugged off the Cuban missile crisis, the Kennedy assassination, the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 3, 2026

The deployment of Soviet nuclear missile sites on the island triggered the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, when Washington and Moscow took the world to the brink of nuclear war.

From Barron's • Jan. 12, 2026

This is the largest U.S. naval deployment in the Caribbean Sea since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

From Salon • Oct. 30, 2025

Brought online with the Cuban missile crisis, the system linked remote computers via telephone lines, a forerunner to the internet.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 23, 2025

How does the Cuban missile crisis compare with twenty-first-century threats such as terrorism, climate change, and pandemic disease?

From "Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown" by Steve Sheinkin