Cuban Missile Crisis: Now and Then [PICS]

1. Guanajay IRBM Launch Site 1 (Then)

Photograph of the first Intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) launch site found under construction in Guanajay. (October 17, 1962)

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Half a century ago the world came closer than ever to a nuclear war when, during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union came to an harrowing two-week standoff that put the entire world on the brink of Armageddon.

The crisis lasted from October 16, the day after the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center reviewed pictures taken with U-2 spy planes that revealed that the Soviets had been preparing several nuclear launch sites and had been carrying out military operations in Cuba.

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