October 22 · This Day in America
At seven o'clock in the evening, President John F. Kennedy goes on television and radio and tells 180 million Americans the truth: the Soviet Union is building nuclear missile sites ninety miles from Florida. He announces a naval "quarantine" of Cuba and warns that any missile launched from the island will bring full retaliation upon the Soviet Union. The calm voice carries an almost unimaginable weight — for the next thirteen days the world stands closer to nuclear war than it ever has, before or since. Schoolchildren practice hiding under desks; ships steam toward a line drawn in the sea. And then, slowly, both sides step back. The crisis ends not in fire but in restraint, and in a new understanding that the two powers had glimpsed the edge together and chosen to live. It is the night the Cold War nearly stopped being cold.
Source: www.archives.gov
Also on this day · 1836
Six months after routing the Mexican army at San Jacinto, the general who won independence is sworn in as the first elected president of the Republic of Texas. The new nation is broke, vast, and surrounded — and Houston, theatrically unbuckling his ceremonial sword as he speaks, hands it over as a symbol of a country meant to be governed, not conquered. Texas would stand alone for nearly a decade before joining the Union.
Source: www.tshaonline.org
“We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth.”President John F. Kennedy, 1962