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the link below October 27th 1962 is the
most important date in human history
that nobody really knows about it was
the day that human civilization came the
closest that it's ever been to being
totally annihilated if events had gone
slightly differently that day or one man
had made a different decision it's very
likely that you would never have existed
in the first place and even if you did
the world you know today in 2019 would
more closely resemble fallouts than our
own because on October 27th 1962 the
world came the closest it's ever been to
full-out nuclear war the circumstances
that almost led to disaster began three
years previously in 1959 when the
previous government of Cuba was
overthrown by a new Marxist communist
party that became the first country in
the Western Hemisphere to openly ally
with the Soviet Union a communist
country just 90 miles away from Florida
was unacceptable to the US government at
the time and multiple attempts by the
American government to assassinate
Castro or overthrow his government like
the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 all
failed the American sponsored but
half-hearted invasion at the Bay of Pigs
convinced Castro that the Americans were
going to try and launch a full-scale
invasion of Cuba at some point in the
future and so Castro was getting closer
and closer in his alliance with the USSR
the Soviet Union meanwhile was concerned
not only with the possibility of an
American invasion of Cuba but also with
the recent deployments of American
nuclear missiles in Italy and more
alarmingly to them in Turkey the
missiles here were within striking
distance of Ukraine and southern Russia
itself and America possessed 170 ICBMs
on the American mainland capable of
striking anywhere inside of the USSR the
Soviets at the same time only possessed
a few dozen ICBMs and besides that they
had no possible ability to strike the US
mainland itself the solution to balance
out this disparity and attack capability
in the eyes of
Soviets was obvious they had thousands
of medium and short-range nuclear
missiles that couldn't hit the u.s. from
anywhere inside of the Soviet Union so
why not begin putting these missiles in
a territory of their new allies in Cuba
that could then threaten to strike
pretty much anywhere inside of America
just like the Americans had done by
placing their missiles in Turkey the
problem was the Soviets weren't sure how
the Americans would react to nuclear
missiles 90 miles away from their coast
so they began moving them in absolute
secrecy starting in September 1962 it
was the start of the most dangerous
gamble that humanity has ever played
with the entire fate of the world
literally at stake and for the first
time in America's history she faced the
same threat the nearly every other
country in the world has faced for
centuries the very real threat of total
annihilation by an external power the
first photographic evidence of Soviet
missiles by American spy planes flying
over Cuba was acquired on October 14th
President Kennedy was notified on
October 16th when he called a meeting to
discuss the American response options
they included doing nothing using
diplomacy to pressure the Soviets to
withdraw threatening Castro with an
invasion blockade in Cuba to prevent any
new missiles from arriving using air
strikes to destroy the known missile
site locations or using the US military
to launch a full-scale invasion of Cuba
to destroy the missile sites and
overthrow Castro and his regime the
American Joint Chiefs of Staff were
unanimous in their approval of the
invasion option but only Kennedy
disagreed unknown to them Castro himself
was convinced that America was planning
on invading and urged the Soviets to
fire a pre-emptive nuclear strike on
American cities in preparation for it
the Soviet leader Khrushchev hesitated
on his side while Kennedy hesitated on
his own side imagine how different the
course of events may have been with any
other world leaders who might have more
easily fallen into peer pressure but
neither Kennedy nor Khrushchev did
although both prepared for war Kennedy
authorized a limited blockade of Cuba on
October 22nd that was stopping any ship
traveling suspected of carrying weapons
Khrushchev announced that the Soviets
would be ignoring this blockade and for
the
first time in US history the nuclear
alert system was raised to DEFCON two
just one step before all-out nuclear war
would be declared and for the only time
in US history
nuclear bombers went on continuous
24-hour alert with several orbiting the
USSR itself ready to drop the nukes on a
15 minute notice 145 American ICBMs were
armed and made ready to launch with
several aimed directly at Cuba on
October 25th the Soviets began
challenging the u.s. blockade and even
getting a few ships slipped past on
October 26th the US began making full
preparations to invade Cuba while on the
same day Castro continue to urge the
Soviets in a telegram to launch the
nuclear first strike against America and
then finally in this atmosphere of
extreme tension the day of October 27th
came that decided the fate of the entire
world right up until our current time a
Soviet submarine flotilla had managed to
slip past the blockade of Cuba
undetected some time previously but on
October 27th one of these subs b-59
was discovered by the Americans a squad
of 11 American destroyers and one
aircraft carrier pursued the Soviet sub
and it dived further under water in
order to signal they wanted the
submarine to resurface and positively
identify itself as a part of the
blockade one of the American destroyers
being trauma practice dummy depth
charges on b-59 these couldn't possibly
hurt the submarine because they were
just dummies but the Soviet crew on
board didn't know that they assumed that
the charges were real and since they had
lost contact with Moscow several days
previously most of them assumed that war
may have already started back above the
surface their submarine was armed with a
t5 torpedo tipped with a five kiloton
nuclear warhead if war had truly begun
back above the surface like they
believed and the nukes had already been
fired then it wouldn't matter if they
fired their nuclear torpedo against the
American ships that seemed to be
attacking them there were three officers
on board that all had to agree on
deploying a nuclear weapon and while two
of them did agree the third named Vasili
arkhipov was the sole man who disagreed
arkhipov was the commander of the whole
soviet submarine flotilla and he just
happened to choose by chance
abhorred b-59 usually the deployment of
a nuclear weapon on a Soviet submarine
only required the authorization of the
two most senior ranking commanders on
board the captain and the political
officer had arkhipov not been present
these two who were in favor of the
nuclear option would have had their way
and it would have been fired the
presence of arkhipov on board by mere
chance meant that his approval was also
required though and he stood alone and
disagreed against the peer pressure of
his fellow officers eventually they
relented and desperate for air after
being under water for so long they
resurfaced and returned back to the
Soviet Union but had things gone
differently if arkhipov made a different
decision whether he fell into peer
pressure or if he simply chose a
different submarine to be present on you
probably wouldn't exist and neither
would the internet or probably anything
else that you know that v kiloton
torpedo was about one-third the power of
the Hiroshima bomb and it probably would
have destroyed most of that American
naval squadron killing thousands of
American sailors and destroying a dozen
ships including an aircraft carrier
under the tense atmosphere that was
already present it's believable to
assume that the Americans would have
responded by launching a nuclear strike
of their own against Cuba and maybe even
the USSR leading down the path to
Apocalypse and an early real-life
version of fallout so remember to thank
Vasili arkhipov for unknowingly saving
your life and our world 57 years ago
don't take another day afterwards for
granted to make the most out of the time
that you have it's nice to do something
productive or learn a new set of skills
organization in decision-making in
crises like the Cuban Missile Crisis
saved millions of lives and while the
course offered by my friend Thomas Frank
on Skillshare on productivity may not be
as consequential historically it can be
consequential to you in developing the
ways that you study and organize your
own day you can take his class or any of
more than 25,000 other classes including
ones on writing by Sam from Wendover
productions or animation and graphic
design from the team of Kurt's cos act
since thankfully the Internet does exist
today you can teach yourself pretty much
anything online and Skillshare is the
perfect place to do it was professional
and easy to understand classes that
follow a clear learning curve you can
jump right in and begin learning how to
do the work or the hobbies that you love
a Premium Membership starts around ten
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all courses but the first 500 people to
sign up using this link in the
description will get their first two
months for free so go ahead and get
started today since you can and if
you're curious to learn more about the
events that transpired during the Cuban
Missile Crisis check out my new podcast
that I've co-created with my friends
called real-life sports where we'll dive
deeper into the way that the CIA
uncovered the truth of the missiles by
seeing soccer fields in Cuba instead of
the expected baseball fields the link to
that episode is also in the description
so check it out and as always thank you
for watching