The Story of the Only American Pilot Killed During the Cuban Missile Crisis

This post is in partnership with the History News Network, the website that puts the news into historical perspective. A version of the article below was originally published at HNN.

The stretch of 13 now infamous days beginning in mid-October 1962 were the most dangerous in the history of mankind. This was when the world’s two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, appeared on a collision course toward thermonuclear disaster.