Order 797113: Modern Patterns in World History

Primary Source: Cold War Primary sources are sources that were produced during, and are thus nearest to, the historical event or period in question. Historians usually work with texts, including books, letters, newspapers, diaries and other documents. But primary sources may also include coins, paintings, photographs, maps, and monuments that were produced during the historical event or period. Primary sources are important because they provide first-hand accounts of how contemporaries lived and how those contemporaries understood and represented historical events. Historians use primary sources to reconstruct the past. But historians do not merely recount or re-present what is found in primary sources. Instead, they analyze and interpret primary sources within their appropriate contexts and synthesize them with other sources of information to produce a historical narrative or a "story" about the past.

Cuban Missile Crisis

This map shows the range of missiles stationed in Cuba, an ally of the USSR. This range put most of the continental United States at risk of a nuclear strike, and represented a grave threat to American domestic security. The installation of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, less than 90 miles away from the American mainland, heightened Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. Missiles were installed in Cuba by the Soviets as a response to a 1961 American invasion of Cuba and the presence of American nuclear missiles in Turkey, which bordered the USSR. American spy planes discovered the missiles in October 1962, and an American blockade of the island began in response. When the Soviet Navy attempted to test the blockade of Cuba, it brought the US and USSR to the brink of nuclear war. Cooler heads prevailed, however, as the American President John F. Kennedy and the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev forged an agreement that avoided conflict. The American president vowed never again to attack Cuba and to withdraw American nuclear missiles from Turkey. In return, the Soviet premier agreed to withdraw all offensive missiles from Cuba.