American U-2 shot down over Cuba
1962 · Event
At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a Soviet SAM crew in Cuba fires without Moscow's authorisation and kills U-2 pilot Major Rudolf Anderson — the crisis's only combat death. Hours earlier another U-2 strayed over Siberia with fighters scrambling on both sides. Black Saturday is the day both leaders feel control slipping.
On these timelines: Cuban Missile Crisis, Master, Cold War, USA, Russia & the USSR
More from Cuban Missile Crisis
- Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
- Kennedy announces the naval quarantine of Cuba (1962)
- Khrushchev announces Soviet withdrawal from Cuba (1962)
- Vasily Arkhipov blocks a nuclear torpedo launch (1962)
- Kennedy learns of the Soviet missiles in Cuba (1962)
- U-2 photographs reveal Soviet missiles in Cuba (1962)
- Soviet ships stop at the quarantine line (1962)
- Robert Kennedy's secret Cuba–Turkey missile deal (1962)
Around 1962
- Six-Day War (1967)
- Cuban Revolutionary War (1953)
- Watergate scandal (1972)
- Apollo 11 moon landing (1969)
- The Troubles (1968)
- Decolonisation of Africa (1952)
- Prague Spring (1968)
- US Civil Rights Movement (1954)
- Suez Crisis (1956)
- Vietnam War (American phase) (1965)