PRESENTATION OUTLINE
On April 17, 1961, exiles armed with American weapons and using American landing craft, waded ashore at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. The plan immediately fell apart–the landing force met with unexpectedly rapid counterattacks from Castro’s military, the tiny Cuban air force sank most of the exiles’ supply ships, the United States refrained from providing necessary air support, and the expected uprising never happened. Over 100 of the attackers were killed, and more than 1,100 were captured.
On August 13, 1961, the Communist government of the German Democratic Republic began to build a barbed wire and concrete between East and West Berlin. The official purpose of this Berlin Wall was to keep Western “fascists” from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state, but it primarily served the objective of stemming mass defections from East to West.
The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was a direct confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It was the point when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict. The crisis was sparked by the U.S. discovery of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. It was eventually defused by the Soviets agreeing to remove the missiles from Cuba if the U.S. would agree to not invade Cuba and to remove Jupiter nuclear missiles from Turkey.
JFK was assassinated on November 22nd,1963, in Dallas, Texas as his motorcade passed the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza. John Connally, Governor of Texas, was also wounded. JFK died a short time later at Parkland Hospital in Dallas. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested later that day but was himself assassinated by Jack Ruby before he could be formally charged.
The 1960 U-2 incident occurred during the Cold War on 1 May 1960, during the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower and during the leadership of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, when a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down over the airspace of the Soviet Union.
