Michael Dobbs, author of One Minute to Midnight, provides a detailed step by step account of the Crisis on Twitter.  https://twitter.com/missilecrisis62

Everyone interested in the Cuban Missile Crisis should read One Minute to Midnight.

The Foreign Policy article he wrote can be found at: https://cubanmissilecrisis.foreignpolicy.com/blog/630847 and his New York Times article is at: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/opinion/the-eyeball-to-eyeball-myth-and-the-cuban-missile-crisiss-legacy.html?_r=0

This month of October 2012 marks fifty years since the Cuban Missile Crisis.  There are a number of conferences that examine the events of October 1962:

October 15, 2012 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars 1:00-2:30 pm

Is the World More Dangerous 50 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis?

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-world-more-dangerous-50-years-after-the-cuban-missile-crisis There will be a live webcast of this event.

October 17, 2012 Woodrow International Center for Scholars 3:30-5:00 pm

The Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis: Castro, Mikoyan, Kennedy, Khruschev, and the Missiles of November

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-soviet-cuban-missile-crisis-castro-mikoyan-kennedy-khrushchev-and-the-missiles-november

October 18, 2012 National Archives McGowan Theater Noon

From the Vaults: The Cuban Missile Crisis  Films from the Archives holdings.

https://www.archives.gov/dc-metro/events/

October 23, 2012 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars 4:00 pm-5:00 pm

Foreign Relations of the United States and the Cuban Missile Crisis

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/foreign-relations-the-united-states-and-the-cuban-missile-crisis

October 24, 2012 Woodrow Wilson International center for Scholars 3:30 pm-5:00 pm

Cuban Missile Crisis: Nuclear Order of Battle

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/cuban-missile-crisis-nuclear-order-battle

October 25, 2012 Elliott School George Washington University 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

The 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis: Lessons Learned

https://www.elliottschool.org/events/calendar.cfm?fuseaction=ViewMonthDetail&yr=2012&mon=10#1883

On July 4, 1952,  the national legislative assembly of the Republic of Korea approved constitutional amendments providing for a bicameral congress, popular presidential elections and control of the cabinet by the legislature.

In 1952 the President of Lebanon, Bishara Khoury, in office since 1943, was faced with a general strike and demands for his resignation. The strike had broad popular support and was organized by the Social National Front (SNF) that was formed by nine members of the Lebanese legislative assembly and counted among its leadership such prominent individuals as Emile Bustani, Kamal Jumblatt and Camille Shamun. President Khoury asked the Army Chief of Staff General Fuad Chehab (also rendered as Shihab) to end the strike of September 11th, which had paralyzed the country. General Shehab refused and on the 18th of September 1952 the President resigned. General Shehab served briefly as the head of a caretaker government until the 23rd of September when the Chamber of Deputies elected Camille Chamoun the new president of Lebanon. The strike and its political result constitute what many Lebanese refer to as a non-violent coup d’etat, hence the term, Rosewater Revolution. This event reverberated down through the years, setting the stage for more political events whose results are still felt today. Of this, more will be written in future articles.

On July 23, 1952 King Farouk was overthrown in a coup led by the Free Officers Movement, headed by an Army General Naguib. Gamal Abdul Nasser subsequently emerged as the leader of this movement and the eventual head of state, though General Naguib ascended to the presidency immediately upon the abdication of the King who was permitted to go into exile. The political trajectory of Egypt was thus set upon a decades long path with Nasser selecting his successor Anwar Sadat who in turn chose Hosni Mubarak. Has this trajectory come to an end? Sadat of course did alter course by establishing relations with Israel, but his will was followed by the military which backed his protege Mubarak’s rise to power after his own assassination.

March 10th, 2011 marked 59 years since a seminal event in Cuban history: el golpe de estado, or coup d’etat of the 10th of March 1952 of Fulgencio Batista.  This action paved the way for the 26th of July Movement to come to power.  In the late 1980s, lecturing at Florida International University, Doctor Carlos Marquez-Sterling, Cuban historian, professor of law and of history, former Minister of Education and the head of the 1940 Constitutional Assembly in Cuba, stated that if the Batista coup of 1952 had never happened, Fidel Castro would never have come to power.  His exacts words were, “Fidel nunca hubiera bajado de la Sierra Maestra.” Fidel would never have come down from the Sierra Maestra.  Marquez-Sterling organized a political party and ran for president against the Batista candidate in the tainted elections of 1958.  He believed in and used non-violent political means to oppose the dictatorship of Batista, but to no avail.