Did you know that the United States was on a quest to annihilate Communist influence throughout the world? This quest led to growing tensions between the USSR and the US, in which we now call the Cold War. During this era, two major events happened that made the rivalry worse, the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

These two events occurred during the late 1950's through the mid 1960's. The Bay of Pigs occurred in Cuba and the United States. The Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in Cuba, the US and USSR.

There are a couple of reasons why the USSR and the US were rivals. One reason was because the USSR and the US were superpowers. In other words, they were the two strongest nations back then. They each had strong and powerful militaries and arsenals. The two nations were competing against each other to become...