Cuban Missile Crisis

From Turtledove

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba during the Cold War. The crisis began on October 14, 1962, when U.S. reconnaissance photographs taken by an American U-2 spy plane revealed missile bases being built in Cuba, and ended two weeks later on October 28, 1962, when U.S. President John F. Kennedy agreed to remove all missiles set in Turkey on the border of the Soviet Union in exchange for Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev removing all missiles in Cuba.

[edit] Cuban Missile Crisis in The Gladiator

In one alternate, the Cuban Missile Crisis ended when the United States backed down, leaving the missiles in place. This decision signaled to the Soviet Union and its ideological allies in Europe that the United States was not committed to fighting the Cold War, and that perhaps communism would triumph.