1. Bay of Pigs-
• In 1959 rebels under the leadership of Fidel Castro overthrew Cubaʼs dictator and installed a
Communist government.
• Castro made close ties with the Soviet Unionʼs leader Nikita Khrushchev. He established a
planned ___________. He actions worried the United States.
• Cuba is very close to Florida and the alliance with the Soviet Union brought the Cold War
really close to America.
• America secretly trained an invasion force of 1,500 Cubans who had fled Castroʼs regime. In
April 1961, this force came ashore at Cubaʼs Bay of Pigs.
• President Kennedy and American officials believed that the Bay of Pigs invasion would start
a massive Cuban uprising against Castro. However, the invaders were quickly defeated.
U-2 incident-
1. The U2 incident was the shooting down of a United States U2 Aircraft near Degtyarsk,
Soviet Union.
2. The U2 incident occurred on May 1st 1960, during the height of the cold war. At the time
Dwight D. Eisenhower was president of the United States and Nikita Khrushchev was
leader of the Soviet Union.
About the Aircraft
3. The aircraft shot down was a United States single engine, high altitude reconnaissance,
Lockheed U-2 aircraft. This basically means the aircraft had one engine, flew at very high
altitudes and was used solely for military purposes.
4. The aircraft was piloted by Francis Gary Powers. He survived the incident but died in 1977,
at the age of 47 in a helicopter crash in Southern California.
5. According to the flight plan, the aircraft was to take off from a United States Air-force base
in , Pakistan and travel over several locations in Western
and then land in , Norway. Places that were to be flown over included the Aral
Sea and Yekaterinburg.
EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE INCIDENT
6. In July 1957 , U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower requested permission from Pakistan's
Prime Minister Huseyn Suhrawardy for the U.S. to establish a secret intelligence facility in
Pakistan.
7. On April 9th, 1960, the United States performed a successful secret intelligence mission in
the Soviet Union.
8. In this operation, a United States U2-C spy plane, piloted by Bob Ericson flew through the
Pamir Mountains in the southern part of the Soviet Union and over four of the Soviet Unionʼs
top secret military objects.
9. The sites included...the Semipalatinsk Test site, where the Soviet Unionʼs cold war nuclear
weapons were tested; Dolon Air Base, where Soviet Tu-95 bombers were stationed; The
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2. Surface to Air Missile test sites, where Soviet missiles were tested and the Tyuratam Missile
range at Baikonur Cosmodrome; the worldʼs first and largest operational space launch facility.
10. During this mission, the aircraft was spotted by Soviet Air Defense Forces after it had flown
nearly 250 kilometers over Soviet Air Space. Several hours after being warned to leave, the
aircraft flew out of Soviet Airspace and landed at and Iranian airstrip
Berlin Wall -
-After Communist East Germany and democratic West Germany formed in 1949, tens of
thousands of East Germans left their country by crossing from East Berlin into West Berlin.
Some wanted to live in a free, democratic nation, while others simply crossed the border in
search of work. By 1961 as many as 1,000 people a day were making the daily trip between
their homes in East Germany and jobs in West Berlin.
-To stop this exodus, East Germany began building a tall barrier between the two halves of the
city. This barrier, known as the Berlin Wall, was heavily guarded. Anyone attempting to cross it
risked being shot by East German guards.
-When Hungary opened its border with Austria in August 1989, thousands of East Germans
traveled to Hungary to cross this open border to the West.
The East German Government opened the gates of the Berlin Wall in November 1989,
because it couldnʼt stop people from going into West Germany.
Kateland Thao Wednesday, May 30, 2012 9:55:13 ET 04:0c:ce:d2:15:b2