-
Castro Takes Control of Cuba
Supplied with new weaponry, Castro intended to arm supporters and spark a revolution. The plan was to then seize control of a Santiago radio station, broadcasting the Movement's manifesto, hence promoting further uprisings. -
Corona Launched
The Corona satellites were used for photographic surveillance of the Soviet Union (USSR), the People's Republic of China, and other areas beginning in June 1959 and ending in May 1972. -
Operation Peter Pan
Operation Peter Pan a mass exodus of over 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban minors to the United States between 1960 and 1962. -
Flexible Response Strategy
Wide range of diplomatic, political, economic, and military options are used to deter an enemy attack. It was a defense strategy implemented by JFK in 1961 to address the Kennedy administration skepticism of Dwight Eisenhower's New Look and its policy of massive retaliaion. -
Alliance for Progress
The Alliance for Progress, initiated by U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1961, aimed to establish economic cooperation between the U.S. and Latin America. -
Yuri Gagarin in Space
The Russians scored a victory when they launched a small craft carrying cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into space for the first time. -
Bay of Pigs Invasions
1400 Cuban exiles launched what became a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. In 1959, Fidel Castro came to power in an armed revolt that overthrew Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. -
Alan Shepard in Space
Alan Shepard became the first American in space when the Freedom 7 spacecraft blasted off from Florida on May 5, 1961. -
Berlin Crisis
The USSR provoked the Berlin Crisis with an ultimatum demanding the withdrawal of Western armed forces from West Berlin—culminating in the city's de facto partition with the East German erection of the Berlin Wall. -
Berlin Wall Built
In an effort to stem the tide of refugees attempting to leave East Berlin, the communist government of East Germany begins building the Berlin Wall to divide East and West Berlin. Construction of the wall caused a short-term crisis in U.S.-Soviet bloc relations, and the wall itself came to symbolize the Cold War. -
John Glenn in Space
On Feb. 20, 1962, the United States showed that it had the same mettle as its competition. Previous flights into space by Shepard and Grissom had not traveled all the way around the planet. When Glenn blasted into space aboard Mercury's Friendship 7 capsule, he orbited Earth three times over the course of almost five hours, traveling faster than 17,000 mph. -
Telstar
Telstar 1 launched on top of a Thor-Delta rocket on July 10, 1962. It successfully relayed through space the first television pictures, telephone calls, and telegraph images, and provided the first live transatlantic television feed. Telstar 2 launched May 7, 1963. Telstar 1 and 2—though no longer functional—still orbit the Earth. -
"Moon" Speech
On September 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy delivered a speech about the effort to reach the Moon, to a large crowd gathered at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas. IT was one of Kennedy's speeches meant to persuade the American people to endorse the Apollo program, the national effort to land a man on the Moon. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. -
Limited Test Ban Treaty
The Test Ban Treaty of 1963 prohibits nuclear weapons tests "or any other nuclear explosion" in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water. -
Moscow-Washington Hotline
On this day in 1963, John F. Kennedy becomes the first U.S. president to have a direct phone line to the Kremlin in Moscow. The “hotline” was designed to facilitate communication between the president and Soviet premier. -
Ngo Dinh Diem Assassination
The brutal murder of the president of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, and his powerful brother and adviser, Ngo Dinh Nhu, on November 2, 1963, was a major turning point in the war in Vietnam. -
Troops/ Aid to Vietnam
Aid was prohibited under section 620(f) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, among other statutes. The United States provided significant military and economic assistance to its ally, South Vietnam, particularly after the U.S. became overtly involved in inter-Vietnamese hostilities in 1965.
