A U-2 reconnaissance photograph of missile installations in Cuba

Home / Events / The Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Timeline

Thirteen days in October 1962 when the United States and the Soviet Union came closer to nuclear war than at any other point in the Cold War.

Interactive timeline — click any point

1962-10-14 U-2 photographs missiles 1962-10-16 Kennedy briefed, ExComm formed 1962-10-22 Televised address, quarantine 1962-10-27 Black Saturday 1962-10-28 Khrushchev agrees to withdraw 1963 Moscow-Washington hotline set up

1962-10-14 U-2 flight photographs missile sites in Cuba

A U.S. Air Force U-2 reconnaissance aircraft photographs Soviet medium-range ballistic missile installations under construction in Cuba, giving American intelligence the first hard evidence of the deployment.

1962-10-16 President Kennedy is briefed and convenes ExComm

President John F. Kennedy is shown the U-2 photographs and forms an executive committee of advisers, later known as ExComm, to weigh the options for responding to the missiles.

1962-10-22 Kennedy announces a naval quarantine

In a televised address to the nation, Kennedy discloses the presence of the missiles and announces a naval quarantine of Cuba to block further Soviet shipments, while demanding the missiles already there be withdrawn.

1962-10-27 "Black Saturday": tension peaks

A U-2 aircraft is shot down over Cuba, killing its pilot, and a separate incident brings a Soviet submarine and U.S. Navy vessels into a tense standoff, marking the most dangerous point of the crisis.

1962-10-28 Khrushchev agrees to remove the missiles

Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev announces that the missiles will be withdrawn from Cuba, in exchange for a U.S. pledge not to invade the island and a secret undertaking to remove American Jupiter missiles from Turkey.

1963 A direct hotline is established

In the crisis's aftermath, the United States and the Soviet Union establish a direct communications link between Washington and Moscow to reduce the risk of a future crisis escalating through delay or misunderstanding.

Last updated: August 2026

History Timelines. (August 2026). The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Timeline. Retrieved from https://history-timelines.org.uk/events/cuban-missile-crisis/

Discovery: The Missiles Are Found

By the autumn of 1962, the Soviet Union had begun secretly shipping medium-range ballistic missiles to Cuba, following Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s decision to place nuclear weapons capable of reaching much of the continental United States roughly ninety miles from Florida. The move came against a backdrop of Cold War tension that included the Soviet construction of the Berlin Wall the previous year and the failed U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, which had already strained relations between Washington and Havana and left Cuban leader Fidel Castro more closely aligned with Moscow. On October 14, 1962, a U.S. Air Force U-2 reconnaissance aircraft flying over western Cuba photographed what analysts soon identified as missile installations under construction. President John F. Kennedy was briefed on the findings two days later, on October 16, and convened a group of senior advisers, an executive committee of the National Security Council that came to be known as ExComm, to consider how the United States should respond.

Confrontation: The Quarantine and the Standoff

Over the following days, ExComm debated a range of options, from a diplomatic approach to air strikes against the missile sites to a full invasion of Cuba. Kennedy settled on a naval “quarantine” (a term chosen partly because a formal blockade would have been considered an act of war under international law) intended to prevent additional Soviet military materiel from reaching the island while pressing for the removal of the missiles already there. He announced the decision in a televised address to the American public on October 22, 1962, revealing the presence of the missiles for the first time and putting U.S. armed forces on heightened alert. The following days were marked by extraordinary tension as Soviet-flagged ships approached the quarantine line and both sides weighed their next moves. The crisis reached its most dangerous point on October 27, later referred to as “Black Saturday,” when a U-2 aircraft was shot down over Cuba, killing its pilot, and a separate naval incident brought a Soviet submarine, reportedly carrying a nuclear torpedo and battered by depth charges intended only as a signal to surface, into a tense encounter with U.S. Navy destroyers.

“We’re eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked,” U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk is widely reported to have remarked as the crisis neared its resolution.

Resolution and Legacy

A reconnaissance photo-analysis table with a magnifying loupe over grainy aerial photograph prints

A resolution came through a combination of public diplomacy and secret back-channel negotiation. On October 28, 1962, Khrushchev announced that the Soviet Union would dismantle and remove its missiles from Cuba. In exchange, the United States publicly pledged not to invade Cuba and, through a confidential arrangement not disclosed to the public for many years, agreed to remove its own Jupiter intermediate-range missiles from Turkey within several months. The immediate crisis was over, though the removal and verification of the Soviet missiles continued over the following weeks. The episode left a lasting mark on Cold War diplomacy: in 1963, the two superpowers established a direct communications link, often called the “hotline,” between Washington and Moscow to allow leaders to communicate quickly during a future crisis, and the experience influenced subsequent efforts toward arms control, including the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty signed later that year. The Cuban Missile Crisis is widely regarded by historians as the closest the world came to direct nuclear conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.