Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. An arms race occurs when two or more countries increase the size and quality of military resources to gain military and political superiority over one another. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U. In a TV address on October 22, Cuban leader Fidel Castro established the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere after leading an overthrow of the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in He ruled over Cuba for nearly five decades, until handing off power to his younger brother Nixon visited the secretary-general of the The official purpose of this Berlin Wall was to On August 5, , representatives of the United States, Soviet Union and Great Britain signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited the testing of nuclear weapons in outer space, underwater or in the atmosphere.
The treaty, which President John F. Kennedy signed However, the relationship between the two nations was a tense one. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. The speech marked the beginning of a campaign of 'de-Stalinisation'. Khrushchev also attempted to improve Soviet living standards and allow greater freedom in cultural and intellectual life. He invested in the Soviet space programme, resulting in the flight of Sputnik I, the first spacecraft to orbit the earth.
In terms of relations with the West, Khrushchev's period in office was marked by a series of crises - the shooting down of an American U2 spy-plane over the Soviet Union in , the building of the Berlin Wall in and, most significantly, the Cuban Missile Crisis in , which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Despite this, Khrushchev also attempted to pursue a policy of co-existence with the West, which led to a split with Communist China in The stunning propaganda coup scored by the Soviet Union in launching the first satellite, Sputnik, was followed by greater and greater achievements, such as the first dog, the first man, and the first woman in space.
Many in the West began to fear that the Soviets really were catching up and soon would overtake them. Khrushchev's enthusiasm for flashy gestures had not been liked by more conservative elements from the very start; many Soviets were greatly embarrassed by his antics, such as banging a shoe on the podium during a speech to the UN General Assembly.
There were elements in the Party who were actively looking for an opportunity to oust him. Their opportunity came with the Cuban Missile Crisis. In yet another case of showmanship that he was unable to back up with deeds, in Khrushchev deployed nuclear missiles in newly Communist Cuba, within easy striking distance of most major American population centers.
Thanks to intelligence received from Oleg Penkovsky, a Soviet double agent, the United States was aware that the missiles were still only partially developed and did not pose an immediate threat. Born a Russian peasant in , Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev would rise from the most austere circumstances to take a leading role in some of the most transformational events in modern history.
Though he is often best remembered in the West for his eccentric and often profane outbursts, it was his innate political cunning that allowed him to rise to such lofty heights.
In his youth, Nikita Khrushchev worked as a manual laborer, and only received a total of four years of formal schooling. After the start of the Russian Civil War, Khrushchev joined the Bolsheviks and served in the Red Army as a commissar in charge of political indoctrination. During World War II, a failed offensive at Kharkov proposed by Khrushchev nearly cost him his life, but he was instead sent to Stalingrad, where the historic Russian victory helped redeem his reputation.
After the war, Khrushchev managed the Soviet reconstruction of war-torn Ukraine.
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