Supporting Freedom Abroad Cuba The Berlin Wall Cuban Missile Crisis

New Challenges NASA- our space program is created in 1958 Mercury space capsules 1963 First U.S. man in space: Alan B. Shepard First to orbit earth: John Glenn Gemini astronauts continue space exploration in 1965

1960 Presidential Election Richard Nixon v. John F. Kennedy T.V. debates turn election Kennedy gains a historic victory Our youngest and first Roman Catholic president A Charismatic leader Rousing inauguration speechspeech

Supporting Freedom Abroad Cuba’s Fidel Castro promotes Communism The “Bay of Pigs” invasion of Cuba fails A bad reflection on our country and its new president

Embargo of Cuba The Cuban government seized property in Cuba owned by Americans another foreigners The Eisenhower administration started an embargo, that restricted all trade with Cuba except food and medicine The United States encouraged anti- Castro Cuban refugees to invade their homeland and overthrow the government

Berlin Wall Kennedy and the Soviet Leader, Nikita Khruschev met in Vienna Austria in June 1961 Khruschev thought Kennedy was too young and inexperienced to be a strong leader, and wanted to force the US out of West Berlin President Kennedy said the United States would not leave the city The Soviet Union responded by building a wall dividing the city of Berlin. The wall was between Communist East Berlin and democratic West Berlin

Cuban Missile Crisis In October 1962, a serious incident almost caused a war between the US and the Soviet Union The US discovered that Cuba was secretly building missile bases Kennedy ordered the navy to stop Soviet ships from carrying missiles to Cuba The world followed nervously on TV and radio to see which country would back down first…a nuclear war seemed possible On October 26, the Soviet ships turned around, and the tension was broken