On 16th October 1962, American President John F Kennedy was presented with three indistinct photos taken of several tubes laid out in a field in Cuba. Kennedy at first took the scene for a football field. His brother Robert, on viewing the scene, wondered if it depicted a farm house in mid construction.

It was, of course, a nuclear missile site in mid construction, and the following thirteen days brought humanity closer to nuclear war than any time before of since.

This fortnight, and next we’re looking at the Cuban Missile Crisis, primarily from the perspective of three potentially inciting incidents - one involving two saboteurs, another a spy plane, and the third a Foxtrot submarine. Sources Include:

One Minute to Midnight by Michael Dobbs And Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen

Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. Patrons get bonus content, and an Ad-Free feed… usually a day or two early.

|Patreon|

Or, if you’re looking to support us other ways - please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen, and/or share Tales with a friend. Creative projects like Tales grow best by word of mouth, and higher star ratings etc also make it easier for folk to find us.

Tales of History and Imagination is on

| Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube |

Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly - with one credit I needs must acknowledge today. I stole the melody for the marimba music that plays under the Miguel Orozco parts from the verses of Jimmy Soul’s ‘If You Wanna Be Happy.’ Soul, in turn, had stolen that melody from the Trinidadian Calypso great Roaring Lion’s ‘Ugly Woman’ - no commentary meant on either artist, Mrs Soul or Mrs Lion - just needed a melody from that general location…