1962 Missile Crisis: How A Nuclear WW3 Was Narrowly Averted | M.A.D World | Timeline

The Cold War: When nuclear weapons kept the entire world on the edge of M.A.D. – Mutually Assured Destruction. As Russia, China and the USA flex their military muscles on the global stage today, ‘M.A.D. World’ takes a close look at the last time we were threatened by the might of world superpowers: The Cold War.

In this episode:

- The world steps to the edge of annihilation as the Soviet Union starts to place nuclear warheads in Cuba. Delicate negotiations between Presidents Kennedy and Krushchev bring the crisis to a peaceful close.

- Vietnam: This small nation far from the Cold War front in Europe rebounds from French colonial oppression with a desire for communism. The USA decides to send in its own troops to stop the spread of communism into SE Asia.

- Czechoslovakia tries out ‘communism with a human face’ by relaxing control of the press, and allowing a limited free the market. This lasts 8 months before soviet tanks arrive overnight and violently crush the new freedoms.

- The USA finally pulls ahead in the Space Race by putting the first human being on the moon. It is a demonstration to the world that the west has cutting edge technology in rocket and missile development.

- The Vietnam War becomes a drawn out and bloody battleground for the US and the USSR, costing millions of lives and billions of dollars.