This Was the Day the World Almost Ended

this video was made possible by skill share learn anything with skill share for free for two months by being one of the first 500 people to sign up using 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 dollars a month for unlimited access to 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

Channel: RealLifeLore

Views: 2,820,193

Rating: 4.9205632 out of 5

Keywords: real life lore, real life lore maps, real life lore geography, real life maps, world map, world map is wrong, world map with countries, world map real size, map of the world, world geography, geography, geography (field of study), facts you didn’t know, cold war, cuban missile crisis, vasili arkhipov, arkhipov, nuclear war, day the world almost ended, closest to nuclear war, close to nuclear war, how close

Id: BR1q9MRwHdQ

Length: 9min 40sec (580 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 07 2019