The Space Race began when the USSR launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, into orbit on October 4, 1957. Following the release of this satellite, the US responded by launching Explorer 1 into orbit on January 31, 1958. On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first man in outer space by orbiting the earth. Finally, on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong, along with Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, flew to the moon and walked on the moon for the first time. They became the first people to ever do this.
At 8:45 AM on October 16, 1962, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy alerted President John F. Kennedy that a major international crisis was at hand. Two days earlier a United States military surveillance aircraft had taken hundreds of aerial photographs of Cuba. CIA analysts, working around the clock, had deciphered in the pictures conclusive evidence that a Soviet missile base was under construction near San Cristobal, Cuba; just 90 miles from the coast of Florida
Two days later President Kennedy is visited by Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, who asserts that Soviet aid to Cuba is purely defensive and does not represent a threat to the United States. Kennedy, without revealing what he knows of the existence of the missiles, reads to Gromyko his public warning of September 4 that the "gravest consequences" would follow if significant Soviet offensive weapons were introduced into Cuba. Knowing that some missiles in Cuba were now operational, the president personally drafts a letter to Premier Khrushchev, urging him to change the course of events. Meanwhile, Soviet freighters turn and head back to Europe.