President John F. Kennedy was informed on the morning of 16th October 1962, by McGeorge Bundy who was then the National Security Advisor that the US surveillance aircrafts has discovered hidden presence of USSR missiles in Cuba, which lies just about only 90 miles from the American shoreline.

With this discovery of the Soviet missiles in the Cuban soil, the Cuban Missile Crisis started, that brought the world into the very brink of an unforetold nuclear war.

Here are a few interesting facts about the Cuban Missile Crisis, in those moments when the Cold War turned hot and red in 1962:

• The photographs which were snapped by the American U-2 reconnaissance planes, were sent for analysis to a top-confidential hidden CIA facility which was located in one of the most unlikely locations in the rundown section of Washington DC. The CIA facility was located in a building above Steuart-Ford used car dealership, where used car salesmen were wheeling downstairs on October 15th 1962. The top floor of this unrecognizable building was the National Photographic Interpretation Centre of CIA, who were then working round the clock to find out from hundreds of grainy photographs for evidences of Soviet missiles in Cuba.

• During the summer of 1962, Soviet Union sent thousands of Soviet troops to Cuba, a coveted military operation that was code named ‘œOperation Anadyr’. Thousands of Soviet soldiers were donned in checkered shirts and were posed as civilian agricultural advisers when they were sent to the Cuban soil. When CIA detected these troops they estimated as 6000- 8000 in numbers, on October 20th 1962, but in reality there were more than 40,000 Soviet troops stationed in Cuba during that time.

• To avoid public arousal during the first days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy’s physician fabricated a story that the President’s voice has got husky the night before, and so he had to abruptly fly back from Chicago to Washington as he was suffering from cold and also a bout of slight fever. The Vice President Lyndon Johnson was also said to be sick by blaming it on cold as he had to cut short his trip to Honolulu and return to Washington.

• While President Kennedy’s aides told the press and the media that the President would spend the rest of his day in bed, but in reality President Kennedy was instead engaged in a 5 hours meeting with all his notable advisers before deciding on ordering a naval blockade of Cuba.

• A Soviet military intelligence officer, Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, was the person who passed on the vital espionage about the technical manuals of the Soviet missile systems to the British Intelligence and the CIA.

• Colonel Oleg Penkovsky was arrested by the KGB official on 22nd October 1962, and being convicted of treason and espionage was thereafter executed by the Soviet government in 1963.

• A Soviet manufactured surface to air missile killed Major Rudolf Anderson Jr. who was the pilot of one of the America U-2 planes that helped in discovery of the Soviet missiles silos in the Cuban soil on October 27, 1962. Major Rudolf Anderson Jr was posthumously awarded the ‘˜Distinguished Service Medal’ by President Kennedy after his death.

• The Cuban Missile Crisis just lasted for 13 days.

• Three days after President Kennedy’s speech the Chinese newspaper People’s daily announced that 650,000,000 Chinese men and woman are there to support the Cubans.

• There were also fear factors those that worked during the Cuban Missile Crisis, that The Soviet Union may retaliate in Berlin.